Charlie: Challenging free speech

In response to the tragic shootings at the headquarters of satirical weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris, there have been a number of provocative essays on freedom of speech.

I have discussed the issue in a previous post In defense of free speech, but the recent events have compelled me to write a post on the broader issues raised by Charlie. Below are excerpts from articles on the topic that have resonated with me or that I otherwise found provocative.

While this attack and others like this shock the world, it is governments, as well as the media itself on occasion, that have been at the vanguard of banning free expression and regulating ideas in recent years.

Indeed, it is our confusion over such matters that have acted as a green light to others to take action.

Rather than living in fear, we must stand robustly against anyone who would stifle freedom of expression – be they governments, other authoritative bodies including universities, the media or a handful of self-appointed and readily-offended fools.

For the last 36 hours, everybody’s been quoting Voltaire: “I do not agree with what you say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it”

There’s a perfectly good reason not to republish the cartoons that has nothing to do with cowardice or caution. I refuse to post them because I think they’re racist and offensive. I can support your right to publish something, and still condemn what you publish. I can defend what you say, and still say it’s wrong — isn’t that the point of the quote (that wasn’t) from Voltaire?

It’s true, as Salman Rushdie says, that “Nobody has the right to not be offended.” You should not get to invoke the law to censor or shut down speech just because it insults you or strikes at your pet convictions.

I am offended when those already oppressed in a society are deliberately insulted. I don’t want to participate. This crime in Paris does not suspend my political or ethical judgment, or persuade me that scatologically smearing a marginal minority’s identity and beliefs is a reasonable thing to do.

We’ve heard a lot about satire in the last couple of days. We’ve heard that satire shouldn’t cause offense because it’s a weapon of the weak: “Satire-writers always point out the foibles and fables of those higher up the food chain.” Of course, satire that attacks any and all targets is by definition not just targeting the top of the food chain. To defend satire because it’s indiscriminate is to admit that it discriminates against the defenseless.

To protect expression that’s endangered you have to engage with the substance of what was said, not deny it. That means attempting dialogue with those who peacefully condemn or disagree, not trying to shame them into silence. Nothing is quick, nothing is easy. No solidarity is secure. I support free speech. I oppose all censors. I abhor the killings. I mourn the dead. I am not Charlie.

Charlie Hebdo weren’t asking to be shot. They were asking for a reaction, though, and for half a century now they’ve been surviving pretty much on the notoriety of constantly trying to provoke a reaction. And let’s be real: pushing buttons, by itself, doesn’t make your work more virtuous. Pissing people off is just pissing people off.

Personally, I can’t just let that slide. You see, I’m from the Internet. Things move pretty fast here compared to the “old media” world that Charlie Hebdo occupied, and I’ve already seen what happens when you get a culture that, rather than asking to what end we defend free speech, valorizes free speech for its own sake and thus perversely values speech more the more pointlessly offensive it is—because only then can you prove how devoted you are to freedom by defending it.

The journalists at Charlie Hebdo are now rightly being celebrated as martyrs on behalf of freedom of expression, but let’s face it: If they had tried to publish their satirical newspaper on any American university campus over the last two decades it wouldn’t have lasted 30 seconds. Student and faculty groups would have accused them of hate speech. The administration would have cut financing and shut them down.

So this might be a teachable moment. As we are mortified by the slaughter of those writers and editors in Paris, it’s a good time to come up with a less hypocritical approach to our own controversial figures, provocateurs and satirists.

Most of us don’t actually engage in the sort of deliberately offensive humor that that newspaper specializes in. We might have started out that way. When you are 13, it seems daring and provocative to “épater la bourgeoisie,” to stick a finger in the eye of authority, to ridicule other people’s religious beliefs.

But after a while that seems puerile. Most of us move toward more complicated views of reality and more forgiving views of others. Most of us do try to show a modicum of respect for people of different creeds and faiths. We do try to open conversations with listening rather than insult.

Yet, at the same time, most of us know that provocateurs and other outlandish figures serve useful public roles. Satirists and ridiculers expose our weakness and vanity when we are feeling proud. They puncture the self-puffery of the successful. They level social inequality by bringing the mighty low.

In most societies, there’s the adults’ table and there’s the kids’ table. Healthy societies, in other words, don’t suppress speech, but they do grant different standing to different sorts of people. Wise and considerate scholars are heard with high respect. Satirists are heard with bemused semirespect. Racists and anti-Semites are heard through a filter of opprobrium and disrespect. People who want to be heard attentively have to earn it through their conduct.

The massacre at Charlie Hebdo should be an occasion to end speech codes. And it should remind us to be legally tolerant toward offensive voices, even as we are socially discriminating.

The simple, awful truth is that free speech has never been particularly popular in America.

Today’s threats to free speech are more likely to come from “social justice warriors” on the left who say they are defending the feelings of those deemed to be crushed under the weight of supposedly systemic racism and sexism.

In fact, hate-speech laws may even become a reality. An October 2014 Economist/YouGov poll found roughly equal amounts of Americans supporting and opposing “a law that would make it a crime for people to make comments that advocate genocide or hatred against an identifiable group based on such things as their race, gender, religion, ethnic origin, or sexual orientation.” Thirty-six percent were in favor and 38 percent were opposed. Among Democrats, 51 percent supported such laws.

Those are troubling numbers, for unfettered speech is not incidental to a flourishing society. It’s the foundation upon which everything—from science to religion to community to politics—is built. We need to recover and grow the idea that the proper answer to bad speech is more and better speech. Or, as good, to ignore that which bothers and insults you. Tend to your own garden, to quote the great sage of free speech, Voltaire, and invite people to follow your example.

Have you met the Stepford students? They’re everywhere. On campuses across the land. Sitting stony-eyed in lecture halls or surreptitiously policing beer-fuelled banter in the uni bar. They look like students, dress like students, smell like students. But their student brains have been replaced by brains bereft of critical faculties and programmed to conform.

If your go-to image of a student is someone who’s free-spirited and open-minded, who loves having a pop at orthodoxies, then you urgently need to update your mind’s picture bank. Students are now pretty much the opposite of that. It’s hard to think of any other section of society that has undergone as epic a transformation as students have. From freewheelin’ to ban-happy, from askers of awkward questions to suppressors of offensive speech, in the space of a generation. In each case, it wasn’t the fact the students disagreed with me that I found alarming — disagreement is great! — it was that they were so plainly shocked that I could have uttered such things, that I had failed to conform to what they assume to be right, that I had sought to contaminate their campuses and their fragile grey matter with offensive ideas.

“Debate may not be suppressed because ideas put forth are thought to be offensive, unwise, immoral, or wrong-headed.”

“It is not the proper role of the University to attempt to shield individuals from opinions they find offensive.”

Bravo.

At Georgia Tech, we are not one of the universities that enforces political correctness, but I have to say that the ‘Stepford student’ did resonate. Georgia Tech’s students are very bright and motivated, but seem generally lacking in understanding of social and political contexts. The upper administration seems cognizant of this issue – I hope to see some changes in this regard.

While I was at the University of Chicago (late 70’s to early 80’s), discussions of the ‘big issues’ was commonplace and ‘free spirited’ and ‘open minded’ ruled. I hope that the University of Chicago has been able to maintain this among their students.

Climate wars

Anyone defending the satirists at Charlie should have a tough time defending Michael Mann in his legal war against the satirical writings of Mark Steyn and Rand Simberg. It will be interesting to see if Charlie and the defense of satirists changes the dynamics of the Mann vs NRO/CEI/Steyn lawsuits.

David Brooks says it best:

Most of us move toward more complicated views of reality and more forgiving views of others. We do try to open conversations with listening rather than insult.

Healthy societies, in other words, don’t suppress speech, but they do grant different standing to different sorts of people. Wise and considerate scholars are heard with high respect. Satirists are heard with bemused semirespect. Racists and anti-Semites are heard through a filter of opprobrium and disrespect. People who want to be heard attentively have to earn it through their conduct.

In the climate wars, those that use pejorative names for people that they disagree with are the equivalents of racists and anti-semites, and deserve opprobrium and disrespect. It is very sad, not to mention bad for science, to see scientists engaging in this behavior.

We need to open up the public debate about climate change, and get rid of the tyranny of political ‘correctness’ in the climate debate that is being enforced by a handful of self-appointed and readily-offended fools.

Addendum: Upon rereading the post, I realized that I didn’t say anything about cartoons. I am a big fan of satirical cartoons; however I don’t ‘get’ the Charlie cartoons that I’ve seen. I spotted this cartoon on twitter, that seems appropriate for today’s post

1,258 responses to “Charlie: Challenging free speech”

“In the climate wars, those that use pejorative names for people that they disagree with are the equivalents of racists and anti-semites, and deserve opprobrium and disrespect.” Amen! If a statement on race used the N-word, you’d regard the writer as an ignorant bigot. I think one should react similarly to a statement on climate that uses the word “denier.”

@Tallbloke The difference is that they get on the BBC unopposed to shout “DENIER” and so preload the debate. It’s a Equality of Opportunity point rather than FoS. They get the smear in without anyone to say “that’s just an ad hom here’s my point without an ad hom”.
Context is everything : The blogosphere as a whole has EoO they can shout “deniers” on their blogs and we can shout “eco-nazis” on our blogs. But the public media is different, it’s neutral territory e.g. Chelsea FC would not be routinely allowed to use the label “the cheats” to mean opponents Arsenal FC.

Actually, I would like to see greater exposure to Mann et al and their tactics. Let them be published and featured in every medium possible. The public will quickly understand the type of non-scientists they have before them. Give them all the ammunition they need to shoot themselves in their feet.

Willard, enough to say you’ve seen me deny things you haven’t bothered to name? A couple of examples would be great and should be easy for you to provide since you have seen me deny so much. Then we can explore who is denying what.

Many stinking hypocrites out and about today. The Conversation standing up for free speech while deleting sceptics comments is a laugh.

Some on Twitter are pointing out the hypocrisy of certain world leaders attending the Paris march today who don’t have the best track record on free expression attending the Paris rally. For example, Turkey’s PM Ahmet Davutoglu and ministers from Bahrain and Egypt.
Only recently Turkey was criticised for the arrests of scriptwriters and Zaman editor-in-chief, Ekrem Dumanli

When the king of Belgium died, Charlie Hebdo ran a cover “Le roi des cons est mort”: the king of twats is dead. The belgians are the butt of french “thickie” jokes like the irish are in England. “Roi des cons” is a french expression meaning “prize twat”.

Great satire to grossly offend a country in mourning and a king who never got noticed for anything.

So I would like to take this opportunity to exercise my freedom of expression to say “Les rois des cons sont morts”.

To the writer who wouldn’t have posted the Mohammad cartoons, what about all the insulting art and other acts aimed at Christians? The discussion around this seems really one-sided. A crucifix in piss is OK, but don’t insult Mohammad. Right.

There is one major religion that still kills people for apostasy, blasphemy, etc.

This makes the religion incompatible with a free society.

As far as free speech, I am supportive of fairly unlimited free speech. Killing people because they said something that upset you should be a special circumstances crime. “Stepford Student” types of activities should cause denial of federal money to the institution until they fix the problem.

David, very few Americans realize the jihadists are blowback. This is supposed to be a blog to discuss climate related topics…but this thread was intended to discuss censorship and media control, so here it goes:

I don’t necessarily agree with Johnson, but I did spend decades living and working outside the USA and Europe (for the record, I’m a USA citizen using a pseudonym). My first hand impression is that U.S. foreign policy is usually poorly conceived, backfires, and also is too dominated by special interests, including the Israel Lobby. Unfortunately, the way the media is controlled in the USA, and the overwhelming brainwashing Americans undergo, make it impossible to get through to most of you.

Europeans aren’t nearly as brainwashed, but they are a cynical lot, and their leaders are mostly into accommodating the USA so they can shelter under the USA war machine.

So, where does this fit with the climate wars? The USA population is being brainwashed to accept a fairly extreme view of the climate’s future state. Everything from a tornado to a dying polar bear to a drought in Kenya to diminishing ice in the Arctic is seen as a catastrophe, and there’s a clear atempt to silence dissent, asking people to defer to bogus 97% majorities.

Brainwashing, manipulation and censorship are more common than many people expect. And don’t forget they are having a special sale at Walmart this week.

Fernando, I didn’t read all of the Johnson thing. What he misses right off the bat is the context of the Afghan war in the 1980s. It wasn’t some silly ill-conceived CIA operation gone awry. It was a very significant and arguably decisive battle in the Cold War. We clearly won that battle. It was worth it. It facilitated the Soviet Union’s relegation to the ash heap of history. Existential threat defused.

Did Afghanistan become a base for terrorists, yes. But acts of terror are hatched all over the place. We didn’t have to invade Afghanistan following 9/11, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. And the invasion was a brilliantly successful military operation. The invasion of Kuwait/Iraq seemed like a good idea at the time and it was a brilliantly successful military operation. The second invasion of Iraq seemed like a questionable idea at the time, but it was a brilliantly successful military operation. The mistake we made following the invasions was to hang around and try to plant democracy in unfertile, arid territory. The military people didn’t want to have anything to do with that. The military wanted to roll through and teach the bad guys a quick lesson, get out and get ready to teach some other bad guys a quick lesson.

I am not saying there is no validity to your observations, but it ain’t so simple. The cynical peace loving Europeans and fellow travelers really shouldn’t be too judgmental about what we do. The U.S has for a long time borne the heavy responsibility for rescuing the world from evil empires. It’s a hard job. It’s costly for us. Mistakes are made, but somebody has to do it. Believe it or not, but nearly all of the people who make U.S foreign policy and the military forces and intelligence community who carry it out aren’t doing it to impose our will on other people, or for oil, or for glory. If our power and our will to use it continues to degrade, don’t expect any improvement in peace and stability.

Fernando
See the lessons of “The Ugly American” and “Sarkhan”. Most only see those who appeared elite were ugly in action. Look at the parallel portrayal of those ugly in face who were beautiful in action.

Secondly, consider the fairness where the world’s first superpower, the USA, was humiliated in Vietnam, and the world’s second superpower, the USSR, was humiliated in Afghanistan.

The West helped establish Israel. That in itself is enough to upset Muslims. But Jews have to have a place to live just like everyone else and they have a history in the ME. The US has been invited to make war in the ME and has chosen to make war there unilaterally. I understand it has upset some Muslims, but at some point, they need to suck it up. They will be better off living their own lives and leaving the West alone. Otherwise, I predict the flamboyant fashion for militant Muslims in the late twenty teens will be napalm on Kevlar.

Jim2, i’m not referrring specifically to Israel being founded on top of land inhabited by people who didnt particularly care to live in a Jewish nation. The problem is broader. I don’t necessarily agree with everything Chalmers Johnson writes, but the ideas are repeated over and over by others. For example, Michael Scheuer writes about the CIA war against Al Qaeda in “imperial Hubris”, and the same ideas about blowback are present.

And Don, the Afghanistan and Iraq invasion were blunders. The USA lost. Just like it lost in Mogadishu and in Viet Nam. Don, war isn’t really about shooting up people. It’s about reaching long term foreign policy objectives. And what USA civilian leaders do is unconscionable. They put our kids in meat grinders year after year and accomplish what we saw on September 11, in Madrid in March 2003, and now in Paris. They accomplish nothing.

The way I see it, the American people are deceived about these topics. The same bs I see going on in the climate debate goes on when it comes to foreign policy, terrorism, or the way the USA gets involved in wars. Most of what they feed you is a pack of distorted half truths, outright lies, or truly surreal. “We won in Iraq”. We won? Go read “Why we lost” by US General (retired) Daniel Bolger.

For the record: I have a grandson in the US Military, and he isn’t wearing loafers and flying partime like Bush did during the Viet Nam war.

Exclusive: Lord Monckton reveals dangers of remaining ‘culpably silent’ in face of terror . . .
President Hollande of France, a hard-left socialist . . . said this about the Muslim terrorists who committed the Charlie Hebdo massacre and the Jewish grocery siege:
“Those who committed these acts have nothing to do with the Muslim religion.” . . .
What matters to him is that 93 percent of the Muslims who voted in the presidential election voted for him. . . .
six in 10 of the French prison population are Muslims. France is not only importing and breeding Muslims: In doing so, she is importing and breeding crime. Why? Because – and this cannot be too often stressed – the Quran preaches violence and death against non-Muslims. Kill or maim an infidel and, under the Quranic disposition, you commit no crime. . . .
And the rule of interpretation followed by Islamic scholars is that the later passages in the Quran – the “sword verses,” for instance, which call upon all Muslims to kill unbelievers – abrogate the earlier, gentler passages. . . .
To put it at its simplest, the Quran not only does not regard the murder of infidels as a sin: It regards it as praiseworthy and actively encourages it. . . .
Being nice about Islamic terror will merely breed more Islamic terror. . . .

Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi made an extraordinary speech on New Year’s Day to Cairo’s Al-Azhar and the Awqaf Ministry calling for a long overdue virtual ecclesiastical revolution in Islam. This is something no Western leader has the had the courage to do, certainly not Barack Obama, despite his Muslim education.

Accusing the umma (world Islamic population) of encouraging the hostility of the entire world, al-Sisi’s speech is so dramatic and essentially revolutionary it brings to mind Khrushchev’s famous speech exposing Stalin. Many have called for a reformation of Islam, but for the leader of the largest Arab nation to do so has world-changing implications. Here are the key parts as translated on Raymond Ibrahim’s blog:

Al-Sisi:

I am referring here to the religious clerics. We have to think hard about what we are facing—and I have, in fact, addressed this topic a couple of times before. It’s inconceivable that the thinking that we hold most sacred should cause the entire umma [Islamic world] to be a source of anxiety, danger, killing and destruction for the rest of the world. Impossible!

That thinking—I am not saying “religion” but “thinking”—that corpus of texts and ideas that we have sacralized over the years, to the point that departing from them has become almost impossible, is antagonizing the entire world. It’s antagonizing the entire world!

Is it possible that 1.6 billion people [Muslims] should want to kill the rest of the world’s inhabitants—that is 7 billion—so that they themselves may live? Impossible!

I am saying these words here at Al Azhar, before this assembly of scholars and ulema—Allah Almighty be witness to your truth on Judgment Day concerning that which I’m talking about now.

All this that I am telling you, you cannot feel it if you remain trapped within this mindset. You need to step outside of yourselves to be able to observe it and reflect on it from a more enlightened perspective.

I say and repeat again that we are in need of a religious revolution. You, imams, are responsible before Allah. The entire world, I say it again, the entire world is waiting for your next move… because this umma is being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost—and it is being lost by our own hands.

As head of the Egyptian state, Al-Sisi occupies an office once occupied by Anwar Sadat, who was murdered by Islamic extremists for his opening to Israel. This was an act of tremendous bravery by Al-Sisi, and if the Nobel Peace Prize committee is looking for someone who plausibly deserves it, they could start there.

To answer public questions about Ruby Ridge, the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Government Information held a total of 14 days of hearings between September 6 and October 19, 1995, and subsequently issued a report calling for reforms in federal law enforcement to prevent a repeat of Ruby Ridge and to restore public confidence in federal law enforcement [my bold]

Both the internal 1994 Ruby Ridge Task Force Report and the public 1995 Senate subcommittee report on Ruby Ridge criticized the rules of engagement as unconstitutional.

[…]

The surviving members of the Weaver family filed a wrongful death suit for $200 million. In an out-of-court settlement in August 1995, the federal government awarded Randy Weaver $100,000 and his three daughters $1 million each. The government did not admit any wrongdoing in the deaths of Sammy and Vicki.[63][64] On the condition of anonymity, a DOJ official told the Washington Post that he believed the Weavers probably would have won the full amount if the case had gone to trial.[65]

FBI director Louis Freeh disciplined or proposed discipline for twelve FBI employees over their handling of the incident and the later prosecution of Randy Weaver and Harris. He described the incident before the U.S. Senate hearing investigation as “synonymous with the exaggerated application of federal law enforcement” and stated “law enforcement overreacted at Ruby Ridge.”[66]

[…]

FBI HRT sniper Lon Horiuchi was indicted for manslaughter in 1997 by the Boundary County, Idaho, prosecutor just before the statute of limitations for the crime of manslaughter expired, but the trial was removed to federal court and quickly dismissed on grounds of sovereign immunity.[68] The decision to dismiss the charges was reversed by an en banc panel of the Ninth Circuit, which held that enough uncertainty about the facts of the case existed for Horiuchi to stand trial on state manslaughter charges.[69] Ultimately, the then-sitting Boundary County Prosecutor, Brett Benson, who had defeated Woodbury in the 2000 election, decided to drop the charges because he felt it was unlikely the state could prove the case and too much time had passed. Yagman, the special prosecutor, responded that he “could not disagree more with this decision than I do.”[70]

Do you think government terrorism has ended in the US? Any judge has the threat of such behavior in hand; it was used to drag Mann’s innocent victims into trials they shouldn’t have had to face.

I love true satire. I still think The Life of Brian is the funniest satiric film I’ve ever seen

But satire is wasted on those without sufficient self-awareness to appreciate it – like Maxie. He seems not to understand why we laugh so hard at him

For those who don’t think Life of Brian is funny, how about a re-make with Sharia law as the butt ? Should ignite WWIII … just ask Salman Rushdie. Are you game for this, or is it safer to stay stum about the horrors of Sharia ? Pretend that burying young women alive on the accusation of adultery is just a quaint local village custom (Pakistan) ? Or be a little more forgiving and just flog them in public, as is happening in Aceh ?

Satire is the only sensible reply to this and other irrationality, which is why it is so disliked by those whom it “offends”

Well, Steyn and Simberg may have said some harsh things about Mr. Mann. Mann has made some errors and been somewhat secretive with his methods and data. I look forward to the outcome of the case with interest.

I have noticed that over the last 40 years that people are getting better at suppressing speech that they disagree with.

I tend to favor a absolutist version of free speech and would give people served with DMCA notices (particularly by non-copyright holders) or lawsuits a very profitable legal recourse if the plaintiff doesn’t win his case.

Attending is lip service for most especially Turkey, good points about universities, more and more the students are useful idiots who are easy to brainwash and will riot to ensure their fellow students keep their brains closed to any nonconforming idea. Egypt attending is quite a statement, I have recently seen some positives from this potentially great nation.

My mother had a common expression, perhaps every other week or so upon hearing some such news. She’d accompany it with a sorrowful shake of her head: ‘Man’s inhumanity to man’. It perplexed her tremendously. She had plenty of fun and laughter, but not about that.
===============

When any group achieves consensus, they have a tendency to block out and attack any thing and any person that does not agree. I believe that consensus is evil, or at least, extremely bad. Scientists, especially, should remain skeptical, and listen to ideas and look at data that does disagree. Not a single Consensus Climate Scientist, was present at the Skeptical Climate Change Conference that was held last year. There were over 60 extremely qualified speakers from all over the World. Many, or Most are well known and respected, outside the Consensus World. Some had been on the Consensus Alarmist Side and saw too much that did not work right and they switched sides and got excluded from the 97%. They maintain the 97% by excluding any that disagree. Their numbers are getting smaller.

These attempts to apply what happened in France to climate science are misplaced. Militant Islam is the problem, not silly climate science “wars.”

Islam is far more than a religion. It is one embodiment of Eastern values. And it is a barbaric and brutal form of government.

The Muslim problem presents a major conundrum. That conundrum is how to determine what fraction of them are radical or militant. I have no idea what fraction of Muslims are radical or militant. I don’t know how to determine that.

Nevertheless, the problem must be addressed. Many parts of Europe already have so many Muslims that the nature of the problem there is materially different than the situation in the US. Not knowing the fraction of militant Muslims, I think the US should apply the precautionary principle and stop immigration of Muslims until some of the major questions about them can be sorted out. The US has plenty of source countries for immigration. And people from many of those countries already hold Western values in general. It is reasonable to assume as a working hypothesis that NO Muslims hold Western values. In fact, they are taking advantage of our values, such as free speech and freedom of religion, to spread their hate. So, I say, ban them from the US. Do it before it is too late, as it appears to be in France, where Muslims are now 7% of the population and their numbers measure in the millions. Also, infiltrate their organizations in the US and around the world. Gather boots-on-the-ground intelligence. The practice of Sharia law should be banned by law in the US. Finally, the US should declare ISIS and any other militant Islamic group, known or unknown, to be an enemy of the US. Any US citizen that goes anywhere to fight with them, or aid them in any way, should be charged of treason and, if convicted, put to death.

WRT to continued attacks, we have another conundrum. The West have already attempted regime change as a solution. After several years of war, the situation in the Middle East is worse. And this result at the cost of much blood and treasure. This does not look like a viable option.

The idea that the militants are trying fan the flames between the West and Islam is totally unsupported by fact. Militants want to convert the world to Islam. End of story. We do ourselves no favors by interpreting this in any other way. This also includes the idea that Muslim militants shouldn’t be killed because that’s what they want in order to become a martyr. The bottom line is if they are dead, they won’t hurt anyone else.

From the article:
…
But multiethnicity in France goes beyond that in the United States, for it includes a religious dimension in addition to racial and ethnic differences. If the most important minorities in the United States (the black and Hispanic) are overwhelmingly Christian, French minority groups are largely Muslim. American minority groups share many basic values with the rest of the country; in contrast, French minority groups tend to have alien values, to think of themselves as a new nation, and even to have hopes of superseding the present Judeo-Christian nation of France.
…

Then there is the erosion of Western freedom due to the extensive spying by our on governments on all of us. The excuse for this is terrorism, yet this most recent incident in France went undetected. This option isn’t working apparently.

If there are moderate Muslims, they are remaining silent. There appears to be no hope that Muslims will spontaneously rise up against the militants. They haven’t done so to this point. This would be the optimal solution from a Western view point. But it’s just not happening. The countries that host militant Imams and militant Muslims cannot or will not stamp out the militants.

We in the West were better off with our own dictators in place in the Middle East. I suppose that could be one option, but would cost more blood and treasure to get back to that situation. And, it’s not a perfect solution.

In the past, the US and Europe did not have to deal with political correctness. We bombed civilians in both World Wars. In the case of Japan, it took a nuclear weapon to force a culture-changing surrender. In my opinion, the West should adapt this strategy once again. We know where the most militant Muslims live. I say if they kill 10, that we kill thousands. If they kill thousands, we kill 100’s of thousands. In my opinion, this is the only way to move Muslims to change their world view. And this method has the advantage of risking least of our own blood. We have sacrificed more than enough of our own young people and have seen orders of magnitude more maimed. Make Muslims suffer until they stop or stop the militants, as the case may be. This is what has worked in the past, and it will work once again.

The US, most countries of Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and any other Western Country should band together and formally declare war on Militant Islam. An attack on one should be treated as an attack on all.

While some might regard this last solution as a step back in civility, we don’t really have another viable path. These militant Muslims don’t understand any language other than violence. They need to be convinced that their culture, associates, family, and social structures will be eradicated if they don’t change their ways.

JC comment: I deliberately did not mention the religious war aspect to this, since I prefer not to discuss these issues on this blogs. I would like to see a focus on the free speech issues raised by #jesuischarlie

Consensus Climate Science is more than a religion.
Consensus Climate Science tries to become a barbaric and brutal form of government that will take away our coal and other fossil fuels and our economy.

Since Islam is more than a religion, it is a form of government with associated laws, this issue can legitimately be cast as a culture war. Western culture and it’s ideal of free speech against a realization of Eastern culture – specifically, that of Islam.

I don’t want to comment on your previous long post, but the outline you gave in 11.35 exactly expresses the issue. For many, Islam is placed above everything, including family, laws, democracy and whatever government a muslim happens to be living under

The religion and free speech/western ideals is basically incompatible and whilst some of the religion who are less devout will just accept the status quo, there are a significant number who will want to ensure that their religion triumphs over the state, with all that implies.

Getting back to the university free speech issue, is not the problem that basically the stepford students are being taught by stepford teachers at all levels of education?
tonyb.

Climatereason. Let’s just focus on Islam as a culture, at least a significant subset of it.

In the West, we value free speech, Islamic culture does not.

In the West, in many Western countries, we value the separation of Church and State. In some Islamic countries, Church and State are one and the same.

In the West, when we convict criminals, we advocate for humane treatment. Even when the death penalty is carried out, it is done in such a way as to minimize suffering. In Islamic countries, mutilation such as the cutting off of hand or fingers, or poking out an eye, is acceptable. Women and homosexuals get no respect. When it comes to the death penalty, the means are barbaric and brutal.

Climatereaon, let’s consider Islam only from a governmental perspective.

In the West, we value free speech. In Islamic governments, speech is controlled.

In the West, we value the separation of church and state. In Islamic countries, church and state are frequently one and the same.

In the West, even if someone is convicted of a crime, they are treated humanely. Even if someone if put to death, it is done in such a way as to minimize pain and suffering. I don’t have to go into how “crime” is handled in Islamic countries.

In the West, we take pains to treat everyone equally. In Islamic countries, women have to take a back seat to men. And homosexuals are killed.

So obviously, I agree with you. The West and Islam are not compatible.

The religion and free speech/western ideals is basically incompatible and whilst some of the religion who are less devout will just accept the status quo, there are a significant number who will want to ensure that their religion triumphs over the state, with all that implies.
_____

Interestingly, the Old Testament of the Christian Bible includes an extensive law library, in books known as Deutoronomy and Judges. These laws were intended to create the legal code for those who adhered to, or were forced to adhere, to the authors’ religion.

And my impression is that Mohammed was influenced by these laws (and/or he shared cultural traits with its authors). I believe the main difference between all these religions is the degree to which believers stick to the rules. Many Muslims seem to be fundamentalists. This isn’t surprising when the Saudi monarchy spends so much money to spread their strict interpretation of Islam. There are fundamentalist counterparts in Christianity, Judaism, and Hinduism.

For the record, I’m agnostic. I study religion as a hobby, to try to understand what makes people tick.

I will help you, Judith. The charlie case is about free speech in conflict with murderous religious fanaticism. The last part is why it is being discussed. If you wanted to focus on non-religious war free speech issues, you picked the wrong case.

I predict that from now on we won’t be seeing a lot of cartoons featuring the Prophet, whose name I won’t mention. I know I won’t be insisting on exercising my right to free speech by putting up displays in my front yard insulting any nimrod’s religious beliefs. Nor will I go to the many countries who jail people for denying the Holocaust and utter any unapproved word. I know the practical limits to shooting my mouth off in public.

Terrorism works – the Aus “meeja” were all over the grandiose rhetoric about freedom of press/speech blah blah … but not one of these meeja outlets will re-publish the satirical cartoons that sparked the Charlie massacre to allow us to decide for ourselves. Too scared to satirise Sharia law

I completely disagree with jim2 on his ban of immigration. Muslims in Western countries have generally adopted the freedoms of those countries. If they can’t tolerate certain types of speech, there are countries that share those views and they can decide to live there. You choose where to live by evaluating the standards of their laws against your own. You don’t go somewhere and try to apply your own laws within their system. If you feel you need to, first of all it is your own mistake for living there. Radicalized Muslims in western countries have this problem. They are learning about laws that apply in religion-driven nations, and feel they have to abide by those in their adopted country. Why do this instead of going to countries like Saudi Arabia that already have those laws? I don’t have an answer for this. It is a mental state of a small minority of Muslims that cannot tolerate their adopted country’s freedoms yet still live there and want to fight instead of move. This mental state is encouraged by their leaders and feeds on the worthlessness they feel in their adopted societies by giving them this sense of worth or belonging to a larger thing, even if that larger thing is an evil cult by any normal standards. How to combat this? I don’t know. Everyone is thinking about this at the moment, but it is the seemingly impossible task of identifying and bringing these people back from their cult before they get too far in.

‘They are learning about laws that apply in religion-driven nations, and feel they have to abide by those in their adopted country. Why do this instead of going to countries like Saudi Arabia that already have those laws? I don’t have an answer for this.’

Surely the answer is that it is a consequence of multi culturalism?

Many immigrants choose not to integrate and in effect live in their own state within a state, whereby the cultural mores of their original country still apply, as they watch tv from ‘home’, support their ‘home’ sports team, treat women and gays as they would at ‘home’, expect sharia law to be applied, kill animals in the traditional way without stunning, and don’t like free speech, especially where it applies to their religion.

In this they have been actively encouraged by western governments. In some areas of Europe you would not know you are in a European country but could be in Karachi or Algiers. The general population constantly complain but their govts don’t listen to their concerns.
.
Basically the religion-when practised with fundamental fervour, as is increasingly the case- has ideals that do not match that of a liberal western democracy. Consequently we should not be surprised when the assertive and uncompromising medieval attitudes -of a significant minority (?) clash with those of the supine west.

This has repercussions all through society, not least in learning establishments who do not want to offend anyone.

JimD, I think that you are wrong in respect, at least, of the UK, France and the Netherlands, as well as elements in Australia. Your statement that “You don’t go somewhere and try to apply your own laws within their system” is, unfortunately, not true.

Faustino, I am aware that there are subcommunities, not just Muslim ones, that have their own rules but these don’t try to impose those rules outside of their communities or disobey the local laws, unless they are radicals of the kind that the country can do without.

“You don’t go somewhere and try to apply your own laws within their system. ”

Yes Jim, you do. You insert “counselors” to “mediate” in your community and their decisions just happen to be based on Sharia. Besides, your religion says that it is destined to rule the world and you don’t emigrate to the West to become more Western but to make the West more like home.

It’s a mistake to judge another culture by Western values, they have thier own values and agendas.

Besides, your religion says that it is destined to rule the world and you don’t emigrate to the West to become more Western but to make the West more like home.

Actually, AFAIK, most of them migrate because there are jobs they can be paid for. Jobs the local natives aren’t prepared to do for what the “guest workers” are. After that, there’s a range of opinions how and how much their new environment should be changed to be like the one they left.

–These attempts to apply what happened in France to climate science are misplaced. Militant Islam is the problem, not silly climate science “wars.”

Islam is far more than a religion. It is one embodiment of Eastern values. And it is a barbaric and brutal form of government. —
Islam is more than a religion because it tends towards being totalitarian regime.
But Islam is not alone in it’s tendency of certain group of people to want to control every aspect of your life.
The desire to control what size soda that people can drink by outlawing larger soda is same thing. Same goes for banning light bulbs.
Same goes for, “If you like your healthcare, you keep your health plan”. And etc.
What is a clear example of barbaric and brutal form of government is Cuba.
Whereas Iran in comparison, is a civilized, moderate, and freedom loving country.

“No one likes us-I don’t know why
We may not be perfect, but heaven knows we try
But all around, even our old friends put us down
Let’s drop the big one and see what happens
We give them money-but are they grateful?
No, they’re spiteful and they’re hateful
They don’t respect us-so let’s surprise them
We’ll drop the big one and pulverize them
Asia’s crowded and Europe’s too old
Africa is far too hot
And Canada’s too cold
And South America stole our name
Let’s drop the big one
There’ll be no one left to blame us
We’ll save Australia
Don’t wanna hurt no kangaroo
We’ll build an All American amusement park there
They got surfin’, too
Boom goes London and boom Paris
More room for you and more room for me
And every city the whole world round
Will just be another American town
Oh, how peaceful it will be
We’ll set everybody free
You’ll wear a Japanese kimono babe
And there’ll be Italian shoes for me
They all hate us anyhow
So let’s drop the big one now
Let’s drop the big one now”

“Islam is far more than a religion. It is one embodiment of Eastern values. And it is a barbaric and brutal form of government.”
Your argument sounds reasonable to me. An analysis of all the options we have to deal with the fascism of Islam seems to lead exactly to what you write. I wish it weren’t so but I have seen not one solution proposed by anyone, not by any leader of the free world, not by academics on either side of the coin, (though a few writers have expressed your thoughts). I’d love to hear what solutions others on here propose. As a Libertarian I strongly disagree with the Libertarians Party stance of ‘blowback.’ There is always blowback. The only time there isn’t is when you defeat the enemy…if you play with them, what the hell? What do you expect? This Islamic Fascism has cost us a lot in blood and treasure and we can ignore it, muddle on or take the threat seriously and destroy them. That is the only solution when you are dealing with an enemy that ‘loves death.’ Would there another way, an easier way, a less costly way. But I’m afraid your enemy determines how hard you have to fight. And this enemy is not going to be bought off or just go away. The only other solution is to decimate the funding for these groups by decimating Middle Eastern oil. It’s not as good a solution as destroying them, though. Anyone up for that? And the first thing we need to destroy is the moral cachet of Political Correctness. It’s a carbuncle on the soul of morality.

As many pundits have said, the liberal media doesn’t just refuse to run the cartoons: they run from them. That’s pretty much what we see has happened in the global warming debate, a knowing failure by the liberal media to print the real news: that the scientists of the official government-education establishment are fundamentally dishonest.

That report from the University of Chicago was excerpted in this weekend’s Wall Street Journal. Happy to see you quoted it. Here is the excerpt they published:

From the Jan. 6 “Report of the Committee on Freedom of Expression” at the University of Chicago; the committee of professors was appointed in July by President Robert J. Zimmer and Provost Eric D. Isaacs “in light of recent events nationwide that have tested institutional commitments to free and open discourse”:

In a word, the University’s fundamental commitment is to the principle that debate or deliberation may not be suppressed because the ideas put forth are thought by some or even by most members of the University community to be offensive, unwise, immoral, or wrong-headed. It is for the individual members of the University community, not for the University as an institution, to make those judgments for themselves, and to act on those judgments not by seeking to suppress speech, but by openly and vigorously contesting the ideas that they oppose. Indeed, fostering the ability of members of the University community to engage in such debate and deliberation in an effective and responsible manner is an essential part of the University’s educational mission.

As a corollary to the University’s commitment to protect and promote free expression, members of the University community must also act in conformity with the principle of free expression. Although members of the University community are free to criticize and contest the views expressed on campus, and to criticize and contest speakers who are invited to express their views on campus, they may not obstruct or otherwise interfere with the freedom of others to express views they reject or even loathe. To this end, the University has a solemn responsibility not only to promote a lively and fearless freedom of debate and deliberation, but also to protect that freedom when others attempt to restrict it.

Among speech suppressionists on the climatological left, Michael Mann is the biggest offender. In the Climategate emails he was seen engaging in “prior restraint.” Now he’s after bigger game: NR, Mark Steyn and CEI. This after legally hog-tying Tim Ball for years on end for making a joke.

Mann and his climate imams have form assassinating the careers of those who challenge him, and there’re those on his side who have suggested the wholesale removal of Sceptics from public life You’re on very dodgy ground there..

Well, since you brought up molesting children, and though I have the utmost sympathy for the victims of Jerry Sandusky, Penn State’s cover-up of Michael ‘Piltdown’ Mann has caused, and will continue to cause, far more general social harm.

Well, of course you would think it was a cover-up because it didn’t go your way. And speaking of children, I wouldn’t let you anywhere near any kid of mine. I wouldn’t want you near my dog, my cat, my goldfish, my plants, my anything.

Michael Mann writes about the ad hominem attacks on scientists, especially climate scientists, that have become much more frequent over the last few decades.

Mann should know: his work as a postdoc on the famed “hockey stick” graph led him to be vilified by Fox News and in the Wall Street Journal.

Wealthy interests such as the Scaife Foundation and Koch Industries pressured Penn State University to fire him (they didn’t).

Right-wing elected officials attempted to have Mann’s personal records and emails (and those of other climate scientists) subpoenaed and tried to have the “hockey stick” discredited in the media, despite the fact that the National Academy of Sciences reaffirmed the work, and that subsequent reports of the IPCC and the most recent peer-reviewed research corroborates it.

“I really shouldn’t say this but here goes. Don’t send death threats to any Koch brother. Don’t send death threats to anyone, in fact. The whole “sending death threats to people” thing is just not a good look, okay”

“Mann should know: his work as a postdoc on the famed “hockey stick” graph led him to be vilified by Fox News and in the Wall Street Journal”

Mann’s hockey stick was a slight of hand that caused the MWP and LIA to disappear. We now know that it relied on misleading tree ring proxies and statistical manipulation; there are solid reasons to vilify him.

It’s unnecessary to look to any court for guidance on this question, as it is self-evident that every right has attendant responsibilities, wherefore no right may be legitimately exercised in a manner that threatens the rights of another.

“Political Correctness and “Hate Speech” laws are our version of Blasphemy Laws.”

Yep! “Hate Speech” laws are an affront to “Free Speech,” “Civil Liberty,” and the 1st Amendment to the US Constitution. The 1st Amendment is designed to prevent Tyranny of Majority or tyranny of those in power. Those who support “Hate Speech” and similar laws, and support repeal of the 1st Amendment will one day find they are no longer in power or in the majority and the laws will be used against them. There are a lot better ways of solving today’s problems than destroying long-term protections.

Mann made the mistake of taking Steyn to court. However, while Steyn belongs at Brooks’ so-called ‘kiddie table’, he became widely quoted by people and what he says now contributes to the thoughts of denialist organizations and politicians. As satire, it should have been treated as an Onion article, which are generally not taken seriously except by mistake. Suing Steyn is also a mistake and the piece should have been left alone. It’s like suing the Onion. The fault is with people who take Steyn’s satire seriously, and that is their own problem.

Regarding free speech, this does not allow people to publicly accuse others of prosecutable offenses such as academic fraud. Yes, satire has as a goal damaging the reputations of people they don’t like, but the line is crossed when using false accusations of crime to damage those reputations. Steyn was clumsy in making this look like what he was doing, and then dug in when given a chance to withdraw the accusation, so at that point it turned from satire into a direct accusation. Anyway, Mann should have ignored it unless he saw any obvious evidence of people taking Steyn’s accusation seriously.

Neither is really about free speech. Steyn’s is about a serious personal accusation that he leveled in a public forum, while Charlie is about a consequence of speech in free societies attracting a reaction from less free societies. The Interview movie was another example of this. More a culture clash than free speech issue. While Rushdie says no one has a right not to be offended, he can’t impose that. Serious people take serious offense whether he likes it or not, and an awareness of that is needed when making any statement in public even if it is intended as satire. Even without cartoonists, Islamists have non-speech-related targets, like soldiers, Jews, malls, schools, hotels, etc. It is far beyond a speech issue.

– She notes that Muslim societies were examples of tolerance in the 16th century even as she argues that Islam is inherently intolerant.-

Comparatively, tolerate 500 year ago.
It was empire was which was, say, quite unlike the Soviet Union’s empire.
Or quite unlike current China.
One could say it was similar to the Anglosphere:
“Anglosphere refers to a set of English-speaking nations with a similar cultural heritage, based upon populations originating from the nations of the British Isles (England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland), and which today maintain close political and military cooperation.”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglosphere
And of course it was Turkish in terms of leadership. And then Russia went to war with it:
“The outcome of the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774 was disastrous for the Ottomans. Large territories, including those with large Muslim populations, such as Crimea, were lost to the Russian Empire.”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliphate

Of course no where on Earth was very tolerate 500 years ago- or the guests said, we have move on since that time. Age Enlightenment, Reformation, American Independence, and etc.

Religous fundamentalist Muslims want to drag society back 500 years because they abhor the arc of history since that time. They are cultists who have followers that want to return to the Middle Ages, not entirely unlike Christian fundamentalists like Jim Jones or Fred Phelps or Jews who plant bombs in schoolyards in Palestine, .

“Religous fundamentalist Muslims want to drag society back 500 years because they abhor the arc of history since that time. They are cultists who have followers that want to return to the Middle Ages, not entirely unlike Christian fundamentalists like Jim Jones or Fred Phelps or Jews who plant bombs in schoolyards in Palestine”

There seems a lot people who are deluded about history and imagine
that there were golden ages which are better than the present.

It seems obvious to me that we are presently living in golden age [a global golden age- it being the best of times for most people living on Earth] which includes the Muslim who imagine times were better in the past.
Part of this thinking could related to idea that people lived longer in the Ancient past. Think that could be simply due to people breeding at younger age, coupled poor time keeper, and finally simply tendency of people to exaggerate [a fish tale]. And/or it seems more likely that ancient people were counting moons rather than having any idea about years.
Also I think the “magical” is easier to remember than the mundane so it was a necessity in order to preserve important cultural information.

“Have you met the Stepford students? They’re everywhere. On campuses across the land. Sitting stony-eyed in lecture halls or surreptitiously policing beer-fuelled banter in the uni bar. They look like students, dress like students, smell like students. But their student brains have been replaced by brains bereft of critical faculties and programmed to conform.”

I detest today’s student culture. But even back in the 60’s and early 70’s when l was in school and most of us considered ourselves the vanguard of the “counter-culture,” the politically correct, authoritarian seeds were there. I have clear memories of students being heatedly corrected by other students for using the term “colored,” …however benignly well-intended….instead of the newly minted “black.” In my dorm, I took plenty of heat for refusing to participate in anti-war marches. It’s not even that I wasn’t against what was going on in Vietnam because I was. It was that I hated to be pressured in that way. I knew damn well most of those kids knew even less than I did about the world…and had examined their own beliefs not at all.

Free speech is never completely free. There is no right to falsely yell fire in a crowded theater. There is no right to libel or defame (the Mann assertion against Steyn, where IMO Steyn’s countersuit against Mann for making the assertion likely has much more merit).
On the other hand, there is no right to be unoffended. Radical Islam asserts there is, to an extreme seen in Paris. But mainstream Islam is not far behind. Saudi Arabia just sentenced a blogger to 1000 lashes (50 at a time for 20 weeks) and 10 years in prison for ‘insulting’ some senior religious imams there concerning something or other. That has no place in the the modern world, and indicates a fundamental problem with Islam generally—reminiscent of the Catholic church in earlier times (inquisition, Galileo, …). Religious intolerance seems a recurring historical theme.

The University PC thing is deeply disturbing, and seem. It is no different than Saudi Arabia minus the lashes, only focused on the secular ‘progressive beliefs’ rather than the truly religious (GMO, AGW, gay marriage…pick your progressive cause du jour). Forcibly Shutting down guest lectures and other forms of uncivil disobedience equivalent to the Vietnam war protest days, simply because of the speakers stance on something. In many cases aided, abetted, encouraged by faculty. Several extreme examples reported in the last year.

Skepticism about the CAGW “religion” is met with academic PC. Judith’s own treatment by Scientific American and Mann is strong evidence. The Bengstom affair is another recent example, shunning instead of lashes.
The worse this gets, the more I think it shows the wheels are coming off the CAGW bandwagon. Warmunists (Lysenko allusion from essay Climatastrosophistry) know that, so increasingly resort to name calling. It is all they have left after the scienctific predictions have failed. Led by the current US president, who said the science is settled and anyone who disagrees is a flat earther. Echoed by the current US secretary of state, who also recently declared that global warming is the greatest foreign policy danger we face—not radical Islam.

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Now is a time to be especially vigilant on multiple fronts. It was a delight to read Judith’s alma mater UC’s new written policy against PC, and to learn she contributed. That is vigilence just like this blog. She is leading by example, challenging the rest of us to step up our game.

Judith wrote:
“Anyone defending the satirists at Charlie should have a tough time defending Michael Mann in his legal war against the satirical writings of Mark Steyn and Rand Simberg.”

That’s a very inaccurate characterization of Mann’s lawsuit, Judith, and you know it. And it’s a rather shameful was to utilize the Charlie Hebdo killings.

Mann isn’t suing about “satire” — he’s suing for defamation. Rand Simberg accused Mann of “deception” and “engaging in data manipulation” — that is not satire. Steyn has repeatedly accused Mann of “fraud” — that is not satire, they are claims. (And claims made with no evidence; indeed, Steyn doesn’t even understand the science, calling Mann et al’s work a “climate model.”)

If the work is fraudulent, why aren’t they pursuing Bradley and Hughes as well? That no one is shows this is all political, not about science or facts.

The Constitution’s protection of speech does not extend to defamation. And I doubt you would think so if you were the one being accused of fraudulent science and data manipulation.

You are plain wrong David. Mann, through his passionate activism and brutal defamation of other people, including his colleagues, turned himself into a public figure and, as such, he is fair game for political lampooning. Read his tweets. His lack of self-restraint is remarkable, given that he should have a well-developed and substantial prefrontal cortex. I have to wonder at that.

David Appell (@davidappell) | January 11, 2015 at 12:49 pm
Judith wrote:
“Anyone defending the satirists at Charlie should have a tough time defending Michael Mann in his legal war against the satirical writings of Mark Steyn and Rand Simberg.”

That’s a very inaccurate characterization of Mann’s lawsuit, Judith, and you know it. And it’s a rather shameful was to utilize the Charlie Hebdo killings.
_____

It looks like an attempt to conflate the action of Mann with the action of the terrorists. He filed a law suit. The terrorists killed. See the similarity?

I think the conflation is unfortunate as Dr Mann uses the law-however much I may disagree with his heavy handed use of it-others kill to get their way, or display a high level of violent intimidation. They are at different ends of the logarithmic scale, of getting your own way

It can easily be interpreted by the uncharitable as conflating. Why call Mann’s lawsuit a “legal war” in this context? It’s a freaking lawsuit, that Mann had every legal right to pursue. He ain’t the judge, jury and executioner. Don’t inflate the little clown.

climatereason: I think the conflation is unfortunate as Dr Mann uses the law-however much I may disagree with his heavy handed use of it-others kill to get their way, or display a high level of violent intimidation. They are at different ends of the logarithmic scale, of getting your own way

A legal judgment against Steyn will be backed by the police power of the government. Should Steyn continue (if the judgment goes against him), he can be arrested and jailed, and should he resist arrest he might be killed. Should Steyn be fined, men and women with arms will cooperate with banks to seize his assets, in case he resists. The distinction between the legal process and volunteer assassins is worth remembering, but so is the consideration that any laws against free speech will be backed by force.

Your invocation of Southern Baptists was intriguing. “Extremist” members of some Christian groups have assassinated Negroes, “meddlers” from outside, and also Doctors who perform abortions. I don’t know that they have recently threatened or carried out harmful acts against people who mock and deride them, but in the past they would at least have bombed the printing presses.

“A legal judgment against Steyn will be backed by the police power of the government.Should Steyn continue (if the judgment goes against him), he can be arrested and jailed, and should he resist arrest he might be killed. Should Steyn be fined, men and women with arms will cooperate with banks to seize his assets, in case he resists.”

That’s a very scary version of the snowball effect. You can say the same about the possible legal ramifications of an unpaid traffic ticket, or for failing to keep your dog on a leash. Getting behind in the child support payments. Or letting the weeds get too high in your yard. Or shoplifting and walking down the middle of the street and beating a cop. I don’t recall hearing of anyone getting killed for resisting arrest over a freaking defamation judgement, but you are probably right.

I have to stop reading this thread. It’s really demoralizing to see so many otherwise rational and intelligent people, staggering around drunk on Kool-Aid.

Mann actually sued over the parallel with Sandusky. Only after that wouldn’t fly did he amend the complaint to remove that. Mann’s “fraud” has been demonstrated in a number of venues; and as journalists, Mann’s victims were entitled to express their opinion in the way they did.

The key reason, IMO, that Mann’s case didn’t get thrown out from was the first was indignation over the parallel: not because it wasn’t justified, it was. Instead, the judge(s) were indignant that a member of their “in-crowd” had been compared to a molester. Despite admitting that Mann had no right to sue over that comparison.

The law is, or should be, about what was said, not about emotional reactions to something not really even implied: nobody ever suggested Mann was a child molester. “Molesting data” is a perfectly good way of describing his behavior, a matter of opinion. And the whole freedom of speech thing is about opinions.

David Appell, I know that the Charlie/Mann link is a difficult stretch for most to grasp, but why are you and others so defensive about people poking fun at the Nobel not-a-laureate inventor of the Mann-O-Matic?

Did you see his latest?

Along with his waxing paranoid about the Serengeti he revised his “Northern Hemisphere land based temperature reconstruction to “1000 years of Global Temperature and CO2 Change”. Overlaid on his “science” is a reconstruction of the tropical IPWP.

The tropical oceans have an outstanding correlation with “Global Temperature Anomaly”, really impressive. that should be the case since the tropical oceans are like the boiler for the climate engine.

The northern hemisphere extra-tropical land temperature anomaly has virtually no correlation.

“Scientifically” speaking, Mann does not appear to be the sharpest tack in the box. I can see defending his right to be a dumba$$, but his “science” is a different situation. Don’t you think putting a bit of distance between Mann’s “science” and yours is something to consider?

Oh, the irony. David Brooks, without self-awareness, enthrones his own tribe of “wise and considerate scholars” on the top of the dung heap. Of course, neither wisdom nor consideration are necessary to become a “scholar”. In fact, the thought(less) leaders of political correctness are the “scholars”, more accurately described as university employees, that have brainwashed several generations of “scholars” since the 1970s, especially in the social sciences. The faculty tenure committees of the 70s ensured ideological purity and adherence to the tenets of political correctness – a self-selected group dug in deeper than a tick on a hapless dog.

We can learn from anyone, even the coarse and uneducated, if we open our hearts and minds and listen. Their messages, maybe delivered in crude and emotive language, may contain the lessons learned from a hard life. History teaches us, if we are good students, that the elite ignore these lessons at their own risk.

Free speech means free speech, with no qualifications. If there are qualifications, who will be the judges of speech?

For people that only listen to the speech of “wise and considerate scholars”, you can read this analysis of the impact of political correctness at my alma mater, the University of California:

Justin, read the report in the link. Shocking, but not surprising. It is as bad or worse at my alma mater. Prof Cornell West published zero research for over 10 years, and used his Afro studies courses for brute indoctrination of the racial victim sort. Worse that Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Louis Farakhan combined. My took one semester, and was outright told could never do better than a B- because of the wrong race to ‘understand’. When then Pres. Larry Summers finally acted to force West out after massive alumni complaint and Board of Overseers intervention, the PC faculty of Arts and Sciences banded together to force Summers out.

And the situation has gotten worse under PC Pres. Gilpin with hires like Naomi Oreskes, well trained in exteme left PC in the California University system. So bad that I informed the University and Gilpin in writing that they would not see another nickel from me unless Oreskes was delt with. Sadly, I do not expect to donate ever again. The only bright thing is not being pestered by the office of major alumni gifts, who used to want face to faces at least twice a year.

Thx JW for the above Report which includes empiric data,
* pp19/23 that show the weighting where left of centre
political adherents don’t merely dominate the faculty, they
are the faculty.* 1999 Rothman, Lichter & Nevitte.* 2004
Klein * 2007 Gross & Simmons.

P 30/32 Mission Statements as commitment to political
social agendas reduced to a radical POV reflected in the
focus of History Courses pp 33/46.

‘One has to wonder about the self correcting ability of an
academic culture so inbred that it reflects only of half the
political spectrum. What arguments will be overlooked,
what lines of inquiry ignored?’ p 30.

Yes, like a virus they have penetrated the university and injected their DNA. Now, the university cranks out stepford students – replicas of themselves. They are bright, ambitious, and educated but they don’t appreciate their heritage. They inherited a republic, but can they keep it?

The Charlie activities in France are horrific on so many levels. Mark Steyn discusses this in his own unique way on his web site. His political and freedom of speech insights are definitely worth reading.

You say:

We need to open up the public debate about climate change, and get rid of the tyranny of political ‘correctness’ in the climate debate that is being enforced by a handful of self-appointed and readily-offended fools.

Are the self appointed and readily offended fools manipulating the likes of Gore, Obama, Kerry, Ban Ki Moon, Holdren………..or is it the other way around?

I am all for opening up the climate debate, but in truth it has been coopted by the progressive green mafia as a key element in their movement for world government and wealth redistribution.

You are co-opting the unburied victims, veryloudguy. Your hysterical hyperbole is hypocritical. Judith apparently thinks that this is just another opportunity to discuss generic free speech. She can be very naive, at times.

You are a shameless opportunist, joshie. Judith is wrong in thinking that the charlie case sheds any light on Mann case or the climate debate. She made a mistake. You want to crucify her for it. Well, you just want to crucify her for being a heretic.

“An emerging threat posed by climate zombies has been confirmed by a series of interviews, media articles, and blogosphere items seen in the past 30 days. This newly created “How to Survive the Climate Zombie Threat” effectively communicates information to the public, government agencies, first responders, and the private sector what to do to reduce risk in the face of unquantified statistics. At this time we lack the modeling capability to describe the probability of anything happening. Therefore you should use the Practical Precautionary Principle (PPP). ”

And…

“Is this threat real? By now I´m sure you have heard about the Australian Art Minister´s funding of a play called “Kill Climate Deniers¨.

I´m told this was meant as a joke. However, our intelligence service located this quote in a blog post by Richard Parncutt, a professor at the University of Graz: “In this article I am going to suggest that the death penalty is an appropriate punishment for influential GW deniers”. And this guy wasn´t joking. This means there´s a credible, specific, emerging climate zombie threat.”

David, yes but I was using the AOL search engine and when I used my quotation marks in my comment they were meant to show what I typed not how I typed it. When I did it again after I saw how my comment might confuse I did it again, again using the AOL search engine. I got 2,940,000 results (at least I did just now but it was similar before) so I left it as it was. Close enough for government work.

At the end of a week of bloodbaths and hostage sieges, I went looking for something appropriate for our Saturday movie date, and settled on a nine-year-old Spielberg movie about the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics.

The death toll in Munich was, in fact, one less than at Charlie Hebdo. I don’t know what significance to attach to that statistic, but I have the vague feeling that Europe, for want of any alternative policy, has decided to live with what British government officials used to call, apropos Northern Ireland, an “acceptable level of violence”.

Certainly, murdered Jews seem far more routine – and thus “acceptable” – on the Continent of 2015 than they were in 1972. There were four more on Friday – still lying in their blood on the floor of a kosher grocery store, as around the world TV and radio commentators preferred to focus on the as yet non-existent victims of a hypothetical anti-Muslim “backlash”. That’s the other reason Spielberg’s film seems timely. It takes a story propelled by righteous anger, and marinates it in moral equivalence – the default mode of our age

Good of you, VeryTallGuy, to provide living breathing evidence of the sickness in western society, the stench of your moral equivalence is evident even across the internet, Tell me, did you contribute to Spielberg’s script?

VTG,
About 170,000 people die every day, ten thousand for every death in the terrorist incidents in France. There will be 170,000 more tomorrow and the day after. Within decades that number will double. Many of these deaths are fully as senseless or tragic as the terror incidents’ deaths. This is the human condition. If we were to apply your ridiculous standard of propriety to the 60 million deaths that will happen this year we’d continually be paralyzed. Just because the media and governments have decided this tragedy deserves wall-to-wall coverage doesn’t mean I and others can’t just sigh and go about our lives. In fact history has shown us that those that elevate such tragic incidents to “watershed” moments will generally use them to visit upon the populace horrors that will dwarf the original tragedy. Don’t be fooled again.

Don, I thought the extremists were pretty casual about choosing victims to behead out in the desert. I don’t think they picked blasphemers. In fact, those guys have killed more Muslims than Jews or Christians, so I’m not sure your point holds–and I’ll bet Mark Steyn keeps his eyes wide open these days.

Joshua is a shameless opportunist and Micheal is his mini-me. Michael and Joshua, there is one climate blogger who is very focused on Michael Mann. His name is Steve McIntyre, not Judith Curry. And yet I never see you at his blog–perhaps you know that Judith is much gentler than the reception you would get there and richly deserve here.

The parallel between the moral issues involved in Charlie Hebdo and those trying to silence free speech in the West is not perfectly congruent. But it is close enough to be useful.

Alarmists have called for skeptics to face Nuremburg trials, go to prison, ad absurdium. Alarmists have killed their children and then themselves in a chilling echo of Jonestown. Alarmists have committed suicide by cop at the Discovery Channel headquarters. They trash archaeological treasures, agitate against cheap energy for the poor in South Africa and tell skeptics ‘we know where you live.’ The issue is serious enough to warrant comparison with what happened in Paris, if not exactly the same.

It is the alarmists who say that climate change is a species survival issue. And they are the ones who want to shut their opponents up. The fact that violence has been mostly absent is luck, nothing else.

Alarmists do want to shut Judith Curry et al the hell up. And if they can’t do that yet, they will trash her reputation, calling her a delayer, denier, incompetent, or even showing up at her weblog and clogging up the discussions with their trollery.

The ethical parallel is that neither radical Islamists nor CAGW prophets of doom will engage in honest debate with their opponents. Demonisation is sufficient for their cause. They are not trying to win an argument in either case. They are trying to hammer their opponents into submission.

Tom Fuller, I know how many of their own people the jihadists have killed in the desert and all the various motives for doing it. I kind of alluded to that. My point was that, as current events indicate, they are particularly incensed by the blasphemy BS. Drives them crazy. That’s why they went after Charlie. You don’t think they went after Charlie for lampooning the inept French politicians, do you Tom?

What is your point about betting that Mark Steyn keeps his eyes open these days? Do you think he is their next target? Is he about to publish some juvenile freaking cartoons insulting the Prophet, whose name we won’t mention? Is he planning a trip to the desert?

Regarding joshie, micheal et al. Yeah, that’s right.

The rest of your comment seems to be an attempt to justify Judith’s linking of the Mann civil lawsuit to the motivation behind the Charlie massacre, without actually mentioning the Mann lawsuit and actually explaining why mentioning it in the same sentence as the Paris massacre serves some useful purpose. It doesn’t work, Tom. And it’s way over the top.

Don, hère is why i don’t think this is ‘way over the top.’ If you lost your life for speaking out and saying controversial things, would you like people to be respectfully silent or talk about these issues in ways that are meaningful to them? I and others that are talking about these issues are honoring their memory arguably more than those who are respectfully silent.

I don’t know what your problem is, Judith. The Charlie massacre is not remotely connected to the climate wars. The real war and there is metaphorical war. Serious people don’t try to make a point by equating real war with metaphorical war. Mann’s metaphorical legal war against Steyn is not remotely similar to the terrorist war on people they want to silence. Mann’s verbal attacks on yourself and others, not like the Charlie massacre. Of course, I could be wrong. Tom’s comment doesn’t put a dent in what I am telling you. It’s just more fodder for the trolls.

I’ve no problem linking these two things because they are in fact, linked. No, Michael Mann is not a terrorist, although he most certainly traffics in fear. What does one suppose all those lawsuits are about? To frighten people enough that they won’t dare criticize his work any longer.

Don, these are two assaults on our right to free speech. One is legal and does not involve murder, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t in its way, profoundly damaging. There are many ways to destroy a free society. Mann shows us one, the terrorists another.

This is really getting tedious. Neither Mann nor the terrorists are going to destroy our free society. Has Mann stopped Steyn from talking? Has he Stopped Judith from talking? Has he stopped pokerguy from talking? Get back to us in the unlikely event he wins his lawsuit and we will discuss the likelihood that his victory will destroy our free society. Well, they start small and the next thing you know the free society is destroyed. I am planning to worry about that, every Tuesday from noon to about 1:30.

Now for some totally unrelated news; the terrorists are actually killing people. But they ain’t supermen. They have been after Salmon Rushdie for decades. He is still talking. They blew up some of our biggest buildings and killed thousands of people. We now have a lot more buildings and a lot more people. We are still saying and doing things the terrorist just can’t stand. We are not going to let some terrorists destroy our free society. Believe it or not, some very good people are working on this problem. Don’t panic.

This is really getting tedious. Neither Mann nor the terrorists are going to destroy our free society. Has Mann stopped Steyn from talking? Has he Stopped Judith from talking? Has he stopped pokerguy from talking? Get back to us in the unlikely event he wins his lawsuit and we will discuss the likelihood that his victory will destroy our free society.–

As you say, it’s unlikely Mann could win his argument.
If Mann could win his argument, then he doesn’t need lawyers nor would he need to do it in a court setting.

The Hockey Stick has already been shown to be incorrect.
Leaving Mann with the limited capability of only fooling whose have strong desire to believe his nonsense.
I will let wiki explain it:
“One case in point is the strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP), which is a lawsuit intended to censor, intimidate and silence critics by fear, intimidation and burdening them with the cost of a legal defense until they abandon their criticism or opposition. Such actions are self-evidently vexatious, but are typically frivolous as well in that the plaintiff does not expect, or even intend, to win.”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_abuse

“Anyone defending the satirists at Charlie should have a tough time defending Michael Mann in his legal war against the satirical writings of Mark Steyn and Rand Simberg. It will be interesting to see if Charlie and the defense of satirists changes the dynamics of the Mann vs NRO/CEI/Steyn lawsuits.”

I know about the well-worn “free speech” thread linking Mann and Charlie. That’s pretty weak and it’s not what you actually said. You could logically be interpreted as having implied that the common element is the terrorists attacked Charlie for satire and Mann attacked Steyn et al for satire, and that there is some level of equivalency there, that in both cases there are illegitimate attacks on free speech. Add to that the appearance that you may be using the progressives’ tactic of exploiting a tragedy to score points in a political argument, and you got yourself into a ____storm.

Rational, intelligent , honest people can defend the deceased Charlie’s right to publish juvenile satire and not be killed by terrorists and at the same time defend Mann’s right to the legal recourse of a defamation lawsuit. Not tough at all. Case closed.

“We are not going to let some terrorists destroy our free society. Believe it or not, some very good people are working on this problem. Don’t panic.”

Don,
Doesn’t happen all that often, but I couldn’t disagree more. I’m actually kind of shocked at your apparent faith in…. what…. our government? With Obama at the helm, and George Bush before him? No, the terrorists will not destroy our society, they’re just helping us do it to ourselves..

Don, you seem rational–feel free to defend Mann’s lawsuit, not from a mechanistic POV (of course he has a right to bring a suit if he believes himself injured by Steyn) but from an ethical point of view.

Don.
“Serious people don’t try to make a point by equating real war with metaphorical war. Mann’s metaphorical legal war against Steyn is not remotely similar to the terrorist war on people they want to silence. Mann’s verbal attacks on yourself and others, not like the Charlie massacre. ”

we can find similarities anywhere we choose to look. That’s because things, events, words, stuff, don’t force a response from you or anyone else in any logical or iron clad manner.

I see the similarity. You dont.

The point I would make is that the similarity can be put to uses
that some people like and other people don’t like.

When I say that Mann’s behavior with data is Like the behavior of sandusky some people like it and other folks take offense.

Now, I don’t like it cause it trivializes the crime of abusing kids

When I say that Skeptics are like holocaust deniers some people like the use of that metaphor. Others dont.

Tom doesnt cause it trivializes the holocaust.

When folks find a similarity between killing cartoonists and taking someone to court for defamation, I GET the metaphor. I actually understand it. I see the similarity. I dont like that use of metaphor.
Are the two things different? Of course. That’s how metaphor works.
That HOW similarities work. identity works differently.

Of course they are similar. Of course they are different.
and they are not identical.

How do you know when a metaphor is good, epistemically good.
A good metaphor uses the known to understand the harder to know.

Lets see. The greenhouse effect is a pretty good metaphor. how the atmosphere works is hard to understand. So we say Its like a greenhouse. the unknown is structured and understood by a similarity with the known. Now of course the metaphor breaks down. they all do.

Long ago I wrote a bunch of pages about this. hmm. too long for a paper, too short for a book.

here was the killer quote

“[All] thinking is metaphorical, except mathematical thinking…. What I am pointing out is that unless you are at home in the metaphor, unless you have had your proper poetical education in the metaphor, you are not safe anywhere. Because you are not at ease with figurative values: you don’t know the metaphor in its strength and its weaknesses. You don’t know how far you may expect to ride it and when it may break down with you. You are not safe in science; you are not safe in history….
All metaphor breaks down somewhere. That is the beauty of it. It is touch and go with the metaphor, and until you have lived with it long enough you don’t know when it is going.’

I think the comparsion between the two cases makes sense.
But, it doesnt delight
It doesnt instruct.
its bad poetry.

I want some of what kim is smoking. Kim, do you think anybody would mind if some witty person created a very humorous satirical cartoon depicting Charlie Hedbo getting his head blown off by a very humorous satirical cartoon image of the Prophet, whose name we won’t mention? Notice the thread to free speech, kim?

==> “…A number of others have picked up on this; not just GWPF and WUWT, …, if Charlie is to mean anything,…”

If Charlie is to mean anything? Really? Personally, I don’t increase in my understanding of the meaning of terrorists killing satirists through climate combatants exploiting their deaths to score points in the climate wars.

I, for one, know what Charlie means without your input, Judith.

This is just another in your series of posts taking complex social phenomena and simplistically overlaying them onto well-worn tracks in the climate war in entirely predictable ways. Something bad happens = it’s just like Michael Mann. Something good happens = yourself and your noble allies.

I can only hope that the family member of the dead journalists, police, and Jewish shoppers can read English and thus gain the benefits accrued from reading Judith, GWPF, WUWT, etc. describe the similarities between their loved ones getting massacred and Mann pursuing legal recourse against Steyn.

She is using the incomprehensible ( attacks on cartoonists) to structure her understanding of mann’s attack on Steyn. The latter is pretty well understood. It doesnt need illumination.–

Why are attacks of cartoonist incomprehensible?

And how is Mann engaging in lawsuit with Steyn understandable.
Unless Mann did not have a clue who Steyn was.
You can not be vaguely rational to assume that Steyn would be
intimidated on the matter of free speech.
So, assuming Mann paid as much attention to his lawsuit as he did with his hockey stick, we should be able to assume he know something about
Mark Steyn.
Mark Steyn certainly not a secret and google search will give anyone a fairly good idea.
So I am curious how you can explain Mann actions?

Even though know next to nothing about the terrorists, their behavior seems about as simple to explain as a bull that charges a red flag.
They were scum and had nothing to live for, and they thought they needed to get into the good graces of God. They were trying to be famous. But they were morons.
All they did was make Lefty atheist cartoonists into martyrs.
So yeah, the idiot are famous for being the murderers of some atheist martyrs. And no doubt they are basking in Hell with all the other murderers.

The Charlie Hebdo tragedy may have us reexamining our values and rules. Our morals may operate across many levels, from the serious to the not so serious. It wouldn’t surprise me if a moral principle that applies to the Charlies Hebdo tragedy would also apply to the Mann/Steyn case. Of the two situations, our moral principle is hoped to cover the more serious situation first. And if it also applies to the less serious situations, that’s all the better. As we may consider consistency is a favorable attribute. We may question where our most important principles are formed? Perhaps from the serious. Then they are applied to lesser but still important questions. It’s my opinion we are seeking a level of consistency with our values that applies to different situations.

Can’t miss an opportunity to give Michael Mann a kick. Doesn’t matter how low, disgusting and opportunistic it is – an opportunity is an opportunity. And we hates Mann, so anything goes!
Paedophiles, mass murder – no matter what it is, we’ll make a link to Michael Mann.

Judith,

I had thought there was some positive signs recently that you’d managed to shake off your Mann-obsession, or at least tone it down.

But this??

Using mass murder to make some petty and trivial attack on a scientist you don’t like???

Maybe a good friend will take you aside and explain to you just how low you have sunk.

This is ridiculous. There is nothing to be gained, no light to be shed, no moral principle to be extended from the Paris mass murders to the Mann-Steyn et al nuisance lawsuit making it’s way through the silly D.C. court system.

I am very likely the only person here with hands on experience in dealing with the type of people who committed the Charlie murders. Have you noticed that they have not gone after Steyn et al? They don’t care about free speech, until it amounts to what they call blasphemy. They believe that they are obligated by their religion to kill blasphemers. They do it in their own countries to their own kind and it is not surprising to those who know them to see them do it in Western countries. You allow millions of Muslims to immigrate and you will get a significant number, who will take what we would consider to be irrational offense to cartoons that are drawn to deliberately insult their religion.

If this was about destroying free speech in the Western world they would have attacked Le Monde, or gone through the tunnel and attacked the London Times. They are against alcohol and uncovered females. You don’t see them running around attacking liquor stores and strip clubs. They are serious about blasphemy. Charlie knew that. I am sure someone is going to call me a coward, but I don’t see Charlie as a hero.

John Smith:
I don’t think it was an accident, and the relatives of those killed may see it as a tragedy. I was after a less vengeful choice of words. Suppose we reacted to the aggressors in this case by promoting more free speech? That might infuriate them but it also might have them realize they can’t win on that front. Shrinking our definition for free speech here, sends a mixed message.

We have this:
“To be consistent, we must apply the same moral standards to one situation that we apply to another unless we can show that the two situations differ in relevant ways.” http://www.scu.edu/ethics/practicing/decision/consistency.html Some are saying they’re different and some are saying not so much. Looking back on my college days, some of my Profs would try to relate current events to the course contents. I enjoyed that, the opportunity to apply what we were learning to some things in the real world. Seeing relationships and building frameworks, not a bunch of compartmentalized things.

Freedom of speech is a very broad principle, that the marchers in Paris and countless op-ed writers are defending in the wake of the Charlie attacks. If you are going to defend offensive/controversial/satirical writings from Charlie Hebro, I am arguing these same people should be defending other offensive/controversial/satirical writings. Case in point is Steyn/Simberg.

Michael wrote: “There is no “relevant” difference between the massacre of 12 people by terrorists and a civil court defamation case???”

The jihadists and Mann are both in the business of suppressing speech. Of course there are differences. One of the differences between them is that Mann, essentially a government functionary whose livelihood comes almost exclusively from government and the taxpayers, is using the instrument of the courts to suppress speech he doesn’t like about an important public controversy in which he is an advocate.

A few years back, Mann sued Tim Ball for making what was in essence a joke as old as vaudeville. He used the machinery of government to harass someone who thinks his work is, yes, fr**dulent. Two years ago, he did the same thing to Steyn, NRO and CEI. He is attempting suppress speech on one of the crucial issues of our time. The length and cost of these proceedings are intended to intimidate anyone who might come to the same conclusion Mann’s current victims reached and want to express their disagreement.

While the physical threat of Mann’s actions are not in anyway comparable to what the jihadists accomplished in Paris, they are still pernicious and should be viewed as such, especially because they involve the use of government to silence people.

Micheal;
I guess you’re saying they are relevantly different. The magnitude of the force applied and attempting to be applied in Mann’s case is different. A monetary fine is force. While there are two differing degrees of force here, I can’t see that that matters to principles. The first amendment is related to defamation laws. Our defamation laws seem to be a compromise of the first amendment or a partial contradiction of it. While we easily support Charlie Hebdo’s first amendment type rights, we then reconcile that with Steyn’s similar rights. We may ask ourselves are we being consistent? To have a lower regard for the first amendment because it’s a civil court case, I am not seeing why? I bought into the first amendment and I don’t want to dismiss it or weaken it in most situations.

I wonder when Judith will begin examining her own selectivity. Imagine her saying something like this:

If you are going to defend offensive/controversial/satirical writings from Charlie Hebro [Mark Steyn], I am arguing these same people should be defending other offensive/controversial/satirical writings, such as what Michael Mann says,even when he calls me a “denier,” although I don’t like it

Charlie Hebro was known for publishing material that was questionably racist (sometimes to mock racists). The Danish cartoonists were deliberately being provocative and offensive.

Since you expect others to be wearing big boy pants, Judith, put some on yourself.

Exactly how am I exploiting their murder? I am taking a stand that the free speech of satirists should be protected, which is essentially why they were murdered. I’m saying that other satirists should be protected.

Indeed. I guess you’re saying that: (1) going into a building with machine guns and slaughtering 11 people because they published cartoons and, (2) appealing to the rule of law by asking the judicial system to address a perceived reputational injury, are “relevantly different?”

I mean like you referring to people as “deniers,” and using other epithets. I mean like Stevie Mac using holocaust references. Or like people accusing Santer of scientific cleansing, or McKitrick calling an editor a “groveling, terrified coward.”

All of those are examples of rhetorical overreach – which is the basic definition of political satire. As Rushdie said – try to imagine a political cartoon that didn’t offend someone.

Hiroshima and the Holocaust are baby steps. When you get really good you can claim catastrophic weather events were caused by CO2 with no evidence and no need for them to even finish counting the bodies.

Through thetorical overreach, by comparing the situations as if they’re meaningfully similar.

==> “I am taking a stand that the free speech of satirists should be protected, which is essentially why they were murdered. I’m saying that other satirists should be protected.”

Fine. Sounds like a fine point to me. Of course, I think that the issue is somewhat complicated, as i think that there it is reasonable to seek judicial protection from a system of laws intended to address reputational harm. To address it through a judicial system that is designed, specifically, to protect free speech.

In a sense, what Mann is doing and what the Jihadists did couldn’t better illustrate the differences between their believe system and ours. Their approach is diametrically opposed.

So in what way are you protecting satirists by associating the murder of journalists by murderous cultists, and Mann suing Steyn for a perceived reputational harm?

Do you think that the families of the journalists would be encouraged because you’re associating the murder of their family members by to Mann suing Steyn?

There is no moral equivalence between the means used by the Parisian Islamic terrorists and the means used by Michael Mann. Mann should face no penalty other than a financial one imposed by law for his abuse of process. The terrorists got exactly what they deserved, a violent death, for the means they chose.

But there is absolutely no question that the end in both cases of silencing speech with which they disagreed is exactly the same morally. Mann’s real target is not just Mark Steyn, but anyone else who has the audacity to point out his incompetence and dishonesty.

A man who files a false claim in court to obtain someone else’s money, has the same motivation as the street thug who murders someone to take theirs. The acts are not morally equivalent, but the immorality of their end, theft, is identical.

Joshua:
I am trying to say our ethics and morality should apply to the large and the small. I don’t see that, we say one thing is greater so we use ethics set a) and when it’s smaller we apply ethics set b). I am trying to say our ethics could be harmonious with many differing situations but come back to the same basic core principles. The alternative might be compartmentalized personal ethical rules that seemingly lack coherence.

This is quickly becoming my favorite Climate Etc.comment thread of all time.

==> “But there is absolutely no question that the end in both cases of silencing speech with which they disagreed is exactly the same morally.

Right. It is morally, “exactly the same,” to walk into an office and machine gun 11 people, and to a suit in court to appeal to the rule of laws designed to protect free speech in order to address perceived reputational damage.

Oh yeah.

“Exactly the same.”

You know, morally.

And of course, Gary’s personal views, politically and otherwise, are just coincidental to his determination of moral equivalence.

Thanks god have the moral arbiter of Climate Etc. to explain it to us. Aren’t we lucky?

You’re one of my favorite Climate Etc. commenters, because you tend to employ skeptical due diligence. So with that understood:

==> “I am trying to say our ethics and morality should apply to the large and the small. I don’t see that, we say one thing is greater so we use ethics set a) and when it’s smaller we apply ethics set b).”

i’m not suggesting that we should apply a different or inconsistent set of rhetoric in one situation from what we employ in another – but that a matter of scale and context are important.

==> ” I am trying to say our ethics could be harmonious with many differing situations but come back to the same basic core principles.”

But the same basic core principles can take different shape depending on context. I’d argue that you can’t reverse engineer from context to the principles, but that you need to work in the other direction.

What is the basic core principle here? Absolute free speech (shouting fire in a theater)? Free speech with some level of responsibility for the outcome/impact? The ability to appeal to the rule of laws designed to protect our rights of free speech to address a perceived reputational harm? The right to walk into an office and slaughter 11 people because they published a cartoon?

Sure, and the alternative to what I’m suggesting might be globalized personal ethical rules that seemingly lack coherence. We have a set of communal ethical rules related to the freedom of speech. They fully allow for what Mann is doing, and they absolutely disallow what the Jihadis did.

Joshua:
Not sure I agree it’s rhetoric I am talking about. You seem to be saying we apply principles to context, agreed. I’d ask you, what principle did you use in the Paris case and which one to do you/will you use in the Mann court case? I’d say in both cases you apply the free speech principle and adjust the punishment to match the magnitude of the harm. So we would be using the do not kill rule and the free speech rule, and the do not defame rule. The do not defame rule is kind of weak and I say that as it partially contradicts the free speech rule. The first part of this good, showing the origins of defamation laws: http://www.firstamendmentstudies.org/wp/libel.html Seems they were a favorite of kings. Regarding the shouting fire rule, that violates the do not physically harm another rule which is one of our favorites. The rules absolutely allow what Mann is doing, but that doesn’t make them ethical rules. Laws do conflict with our ethics at times. In that case, we vote and hope, and deal with it.

Michael:
You should have seen my communication skills in high school. I could have been some kind of poster child. “Relevant: having significant and demonstrable bearing on the matter at hand.” Is this violence or the first amendment? The violence emerged from the free speech issue.

curryja | January 11, 2015 at 11:51 pm |
“oh, you mean something like when the alarmists use a natural catastrophe…, to ‘prevent’ future Sandys?”

Wow, you really are completely lost aren’t you?
Trying to defend the indefensible is leading you deeper and deeper into sh!t.

If, somehow, your comments were about preventing a future Charlie Hebdo…..but no, you were about using it as a rhetorical device to attack Michael Mann, even worse, anyone who dare support Mann, arguing that they couldn’t defend the satirists and support Mann.

Quite a spectacle to see you leading the charge as the nuttiest denizen, and people like Rob Ellison and Don Monfort playing the role of sensible and sane.

Judith & Ragnaar
I see and hear much lofty discussion of ethics and consistency of such,
from academia
I observe… Climategate
Judith Curry’s treatment by some of her peers
the Sandusky affair
University presidents with million dollar salaries while adjuncts barely make minimum wage
the ludicrous hypocrisy of campus PC
I could go on
how’s that ethics education going?
forgive me if high minded statements on University websites fall on my deaf ears
yet I do get up, and try again

Mosher:
Like your point, similar and identical. Lake ice is similar to sea ice so understanding lake ice may give insights into sea ice. People may say, they’re not identical, so don’t apply anything you know about one to the other. We may say my 140 acre lake has nothing to do with the Arctic sea ice and look at the scale difference. There are still many overlapping attributes of my lake ice that in Arctic.

“This is ridiculous. There is nothing to be gained, no light to be shed, no moral principle to be extended from the Paris mass murders to the Mann-Steyn et al nuisance lawsuit making it’s way through the silly D.C. court system.”

there is a lot to be gained.

Here is what I see.

Let’s look at a continuum of shutting people up and also at the question of speaking with one voice.

I will relay my experience again with Judith.

I found her to be someone who was unwilling to shut people up. Even Steven Goddard. Seriously, I wondered why does she continue to support the rights of idjits to speak?
and then there is defamation and then there is blasphamey.

In all cases I see Judith committed ( overly committed in my view) to letting people speak. There might be some reasons for that. I don’t need to ask her to defend this. I note it as a principle. She gets to have that principle. Kinda on a jihad for freedom of expression. Opps bad metaphor.

In conjunction with this she has a real reluctance to be a part of any
“speaking with one voice”

So her take on the consensus and refusal to participate in consensus making, is in my mind deeply tied to her commitment to protect peoples right to be heard. even if they they are dumb. even if they say nasty things about Mann, or her, even if they offend the Prophet.
She will draw a line in one denizen saying nasty things about An other. That’s an interesting exception. One I would think bears exploring.
all principles have interesting exceptions.

Other folks want to draw lines and distinctions. Its one thing to tell an idjit to shut up, its another thing to call a scientist a fraud and its another thing to blaspheme.
And for each of these categories folks think there are different justifable reactions.

For Judith they are all of a piece. And the various uses of power against those who have a different view are all of a piece. even the drive to speak with one voice is in her mind a use of power to close off discussion.

I understand her unwillingness to close things off. and yet find those areas where she will “close” things off interesting.

like not listening to sky dragons.

Its no great feat to find these inconsistencies. every system has them.
its no great criticism to point them out.

Mosh, interesting comment. My attempt to protect denizens from insults is that insulting mostly anonymous people has no particular value in the debate (and leads to boring back and forth bickering); I do allow insults for people higher up the food chain in the climate debate (including myself).

Regarding the sky dragons, I devoted about a half dozen threads to them, and allow them to comment here on relevant threads (provided their comments are not too lengthy or numerous). But I don’t listen very hard (if someone sends me an essay via email, I will take a look).

Anything that can become a law is a real war.
It can hurt people and even kill them just as dead as in a real war.
Real wars might be more bloody and more in your face horrible, but a law that makes someone a slave or destroys their life is just as damaging.
Free speech is a real war.
The radical feminist attack on men is a real war.

To reiterate, I dont think anyone here would try to compare the horror of a real war to the abstract wars for freedom, but, in the end, the stakes are just as high.
$0.02

Let’s get real, Steven. Michael Mann hasn’t shut anybody up. He may have discouraged some from calling him the f—- word, but he hasn’t silenced anybody. Has McIntyre been shut up? Has Brandon S. been shut up? Has Steyn been shut up? On the other hand, the terrorists in Paris have shut people up. Trying some how to assert or imply there is some equivalency there is silly, bordering on dishonesty.

I am still waiting for somebody to explain how the killings in Paris relate to Mann’s lawsuit. I told my son to shut up and stop whining this morning, or I would take away his video games. Is that linked to the killings in Paris? We can say that a molehill is shaped like a mountain, and that to an ant it looks like a mountain, but it ain’t a mountain.

“Under this provocation, Kissinger described Hitchens in a television interview last week as “a great fiction writer who accused Mother Teresa of human rights violations and denied the Holocaust ever took place”.

Now Hitchens, pointing out that both he and his wife Carol are Jewish, says: “Kissinger will be hearing from my attorney, who will tell him several things he already knows. What he said is false, malicious and defamatory, and if he says it again, we will proceed against him in court. …”

Don, it’s a little like the difference between grand and light opera. Certainly, the Piltdown Mann is a comic figure, and gunned down Hebdo is pretty grand, the works. But when you consider the billions impoverished, diminished, and extinguished by the policies incurred by calls of catastrophic alarm, then the efforts of Mann and ‘the Green Blob’ to suppress dissent are far grander than bizarre, though not absurd, theatre in Gay Paree.
===========================

That’s not helpful, Judith. We all practice self-censorship. Give us some examples that might shock us. You don’t have to name names. Have climate scientists been so intimidated by Mann’s lawsuit that they won’t call Mann the f—- word? That’s what he is suing about. You can criticize Mann and his work without using the f—- word. You and many others have done it. Isn’t it part of the collegial code anyway, not to call fellow scientists the f—- word? You are struggling with this, Judith. Why don’t you just say that Mann’s lawsuit is not really like the terrorists killing those people in Paris?

Would any climate scientist who has told J.A. Curry you self-censor because of Michael E. Mann please come forward and prove she is not wildly exaggerating this. And while you are at it, explain why you are so afraid of a mediocre climate scientist who is not very smart.

The issue is this. They tell me they don’t want to have to put up with what I have had to put up with. Or they work for a government agency, or they are untenured, and fear for their jobs. They are not so much afraid of Michael Mann personally, but rather the culture of ostracizing scientists who challenge the consensus, of which Mann is its most vociferous practitioner.

Google ‘Judith Curry’. See what pops up. How is someone supposed to get a new job, or receive external recognition, with the kind of censure and abuse that is apparent here? People looking to hire someone definitely check out their profile on the internet. If a scientist doesn’t want this kind of attention, or can’t afford it in terms of their job or desired career path, who can blame them?

As regards climate science don’t you think people are sometime in awe of the reputation of others who are pre-eminent in their field and may be intimidated to speak out because of this, or don’t want to lose the respect of their peers, or are afraid of being sued?

This moroccan proverb sums it up;

‘If at noon the King declares it is night, behold the stars.’

97% of those who responded said they suspend their critical faculties when it comes to the output of certain leading climate scientists*

What pops up is that Judith Curry is an activist. A climate combatant who name calls (“denier,” anyone?), who impugns the motives, integrity, science and character of people who disagree with her about the science of climate change.

Not to say that the kind of flak that you get is entirely deserved, Judith, but it isn’t merely because of your position on the science. If you didn’t choose to be such an activist, then the scale of the reactions would be different.

Joshua, I am all about disagreement. I am trying to bring disagreement and debate back into the public discourse on climate change. The only people I criticize are those who try to stifle public debate.

==> “Joshua, I am all about disagreement. I am trying to bring disagreement and debate back into the public discourse on climate change. The only people I criticize are those who try to stifle public debate.”

I’m all for that,Judith, as a goal. And I support you to the extent that I think that your tactics are useful towards reaching that goal.

What I am disagreeing :-) with, is whether your form of advocacy is improving the discourse of disagreement, increasing or decreasing the likelihood of positive outcomes from the agreement, etc.

It is possible to be critical of your form of advocacy, Judith, and still support increased public discourse. The basic problem, IMO, is that you don’t accept that, and as such, you contribute to the sameolsameol.

“Mosh, interesting comment. My attempt to protect denizens from insults is that insulting mostly anonymous people has no particular value in the debate (and leads to boring back and forth bickering); I do allow insults for people higher up the food chain in the climate debate (including myself).”

Ya. So there are cases where the principle of “create value” trumps the value of “allow others to be heard”. And that principle also has an exception. If you are in a position of power over the speech of others, you
do not apply the “create value” principle with regards to speech directed at you.

In a classroom setting, you allow students to say anything about you.
But when it comes to their speech about each other, you dont want to encourage\allow personal wars between say two students
A) because you might have to pick sides and exert your power
B) because the good of all students outweighs the rights of the
two who are fighting between themselves

###########################3

Regarding the sky dragons, I devoted about a half dozen threads to them, and allow them to comment here on relevant threads (provided their comments are not too lengthy or numerous). But I don’t listen very hard (if someone sends me an essay via email, I will take a look).
……
by shutting people up we miss what they are saying, and it might be interesting and important.

##############

Again, the value of being interesting takes precedence.

so the values of letting people speak and the value of listening, is subject to constraint. try to be interesting. try to add value, and if you are in a position of power be more tolerant and patient than others and never stop listening entirely.

I think its a mistake to label these conflicts and your resolutions as “contradictions” or “hypocritical” or “inconsistent” The rules of Judith are a lot more clear than the rules of football or golf.

You do realize in a court of law your testimony would be inadmissible as speculation while Judith was testifying to personal knowledge of some who have shared their viewpoints. You could always impugn the motives of those who spoke up, or even better, you could hire some neuroscientists to discern whether they truly believed what they said or were just reacting to some sublimated, unrealistic fears. But for the time being why is it impossible to accept her version of what has been told to her.

Judith, you are straying off topic. You made a statement in the post we are discussing that amounts to an assertion that there is a significant level of equivalency, between the Mann lawsuit (which you characterized as a legal war on free speech) and the killings in Paris (an actual war on free speech). It’s a false equivalency. A very basic propaganda tactic easily spotted by veterans of the Cold War, and just about anybody else who can read.

“Anyone defending the satirists at Charlie should have a tough time defending Michael Mann in his legal war against the satirical writings of Mark Steyn and Rand Simberg. It will be interesting to see if Charlie and the defense of satirists changes the dynamics of the Mann vs NRO/CEI/Steyn lawsuits.”

You are placing Mann in virtually the same position as the terrorists. If one is against the terrorists war on free speech, then one is going to have a hard time not being against Mann, in his war on free speech. That’s easily spotted false equivalency and it’s foolishness. You should retract. Just my very humble opinion.

If one is concerned about the interface between freedom of expression and the intolerance of Islamic fanatics, I would think that they would have been discussing this issue long before the recent incident in Paris.

Consider the completely different scale between the impact on freedom of expression resulting from Islamic fundamentalism dealt with on a daily basis throughout the Islamic world, and the negative impact from the massacre in Paris.

The negative impact from the Paris massacre (if not the potential for positive impact, in twisted way) is, I would argue, orders of magnitude smaller in scale.

Yet because climate combatants have forefront in their mind the climate wars, and as such see Steyn vs. Mann as of huge importance, they look at Paris and see the patterns that match the patterns they want to see in Steyn vs Mann (a threat our free speech).

In fact, no matter the outcome of Mann vs. Steyn, the impact on our free speech rights will be minimal. It is one case among many, many cases that test our rules of law regarding free speech. In fact, Steyn vs. Mann represents the very antithesis of fan attack on free speech. It is the very antithesis of Jihadists murdering journalists. It is about the priority we place, in our society, to protect free speech rights by the rule of law.

People see in these issues the patterns they want to see, so that they can draw out evidence for supporting the narratives they want to advance. It is exploitative.

A discussion of free speech implications from Paris, and from Steyn vs. Mann, would require nuance and the consideration of questions such as whether Mann suing Steyn will in fact strengthen our free speech rights rather than weaken them – no matter the outcome.

Exploitation of the free speech implications from Paris, and Steyn vs. Mann, only requires that we find simplistic patterns to advance pre-conceived narratives.

ceresco, do you think a court would entertain Judith relating what someone allegedly told her, whose name she can’t mention? Some of you people are completely blinded and rendered senseless by loyalty.

We should discuss the possibility to encourage public denunciations of alarmists. Shaming of those who do not wish to speak against their alarmist peers could become a part of the public broadcasting programs.

Joshua:
“…the impact on freedom of expression resulting from Islamic fundamentalism dealt with on a daily basis throughout the Islamic world…”
“The negative impact from the Paris massacre (if not the potential for positive impact, in (a) twisted way) is, I would argue, orders of magnitude smaller in scale.”
I am agreeing I think. The easy thing to do is denounce the terrorists now. But there is the bigger more intractable problem that you mentioned.

From the article:
…
The statement mentions some of the values that the Founders saw as inherent in the principle of freedom of the press: the search and attainment of truth, scientific progress, cultural development, the increase of virtue among the people, the holding of governmental officials to republican values, the strengthening of community, and a check upon self-aggrandizing politicians. But broad statements such as this may tell us less than we would like to know about what “the freedom of the press” meant to the Founders as a rule of law, when the freedom would yield to competing concerns, or whether the freedom prohibited only prior restraints or also subsequent punishments.

There were very few reported Founding-era court cases interpreting the federal and state Freedom of Speech and of the Press Clause, and very few Founding-era political controversies that would have excited some detailed discussion of what the clauses meant. The governments of the time were quite small, and the statute books thin. There were few laws restricting commercial advertising. There was only one state law banning pornography, and that appears to have been unenforced until 1821. There were a few state blasphemy laws, but they were largely unenforced from the early 1700s until the 1810s. There were no bans on flag-burning, campaign spending, or anonymous speech. This may but does not necessarily mean that such speech was broadly believed to be constitutionally protected; then as today, the government did not ban all that it had the power to ban. But the paucity of such bans meant that few people in that era really had occasion to define what the constitutional boundaries of speech and press protection might be. The only speech restriction that was broadly enforced was traditional libel law. Defaming another person was understood to be constitutionally unprotected.
…

You say “Charlie” and I think Charlie Manson, who was the leader of a cult. Cults are weird things, they have fanatical followers but the rest of us can’t imagine why. Some cults turn into religions. Would you call Scientology a religion? Climate Science? Stalinism? Some of them are banned, such as Nazis and Neo-Nazis. Should “Mein Kampf” be banned as hate speech? If so, why should not the Koran also be banned as hate speech? It’s hard to call Islam the religion of peace when it’s sacred book reads like a jihad manual. Have the billions of Muslims around the world not read the Koran or do they just cherry pick the parts they like? Islam is only a synthetic religion, but Islam is much much more than a religion, it dictates how to run everything from the government to all the personal details. The only thing it leaves out is “thou shall not kill” and other calls for humanity and civilization (e.g., Western Values).

In falling over backwards to submit to Islam’s values, we abandon our own hard-won but tenuous escape from the dark ages. The end of free speech and then science and justice is even worse than global warming. Without free speech, everything else falls apart.

mrsean2k observes the field of Bully Goats:
Increasingly elderly, tough, semi-domesticated livestock. Kept in line by a single ruthless herds-Mann, they owe their longevity primarily to constantly chewing over the same old cud.
In appearance, dominant Bully Goats can be readily identified, sporting distinctive facial hair (the “goatee”) and a thinning pate.
Behaviourally, Bully Goats are marked by a tremendously stubborn attitude, snorting and defending their ground, and reluctant to concede an inch, no matter how shaky it may be underfoot. Younger examples rarely thrive unless they emulate this behaviour.
On very rare occasions, a member of the herd (or “Team” to use the proper collective noun) breaks ranks and goes rogue. The rest of the Team refer to this as a “Judith Goat”, claiming it’s aim is solely to lead other Team members to a ruinous end.https://mrsean2k.wordpress.com/2013/04/03/bully-goats/

I had written a much longer post but pulled it. About the only obvious connection between radical Islam and progressive PC is they both bear many hallmarks of ‘faith based’ rejection of contemporary reality. Progressive PC is perhaps a secular religion where, according to PC Hilary Clinton, corporations do not create jobs and wealth.

Judith’s ‘tyranny of university progressive PC’ is real. My own alma mater has had three shocking examples in the last few years, noted in a comment to Justin concerning the NAS California report he called attention to.

Freedom requires eternal vigilence. Judith’s contribution to the new U Chicago statement (that it was thought needed shows the depth of the PC free speech problem) , and her blog here are both inspiring examples of free speech vigilence.

Needed when the PC US President declares that climate science is settled, and anyone who disagrees is a flat earther. Needed when the Secretary of State echoes that very wording in Jakarta, then goes on to opine that climate change is the biggest foreign policy problem the US faces—not radical Islam or a growling Russian bear. Such is the tyranny of progressive PC thought. And not just in academia.

If you want to respond to my comments, please do so with some semblence of sentient intelligence and substance.
So, you do not think Secretary Kerry’s recent international comments are not alarming given his official State Department responsibilities? Now, that is alarming.

Joshua, as expected from your track record, you fail the requested test.
And I am quite certain Rob, Willis, and myself would disagree on a lot, and agree on a lot. We already have, both ways. But the parry and thrust of debated data would be educational to all, including us.
To which debate you would apparently have little to contribute. Since here almost never have previously.

Well said. Any Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the USA that ignores the threat of Islamist extremism or Russian aggression in Eastern Europe is either a liar or is in denial. He does have more flexibility now, after his final election.

I am old enough that I remember a time when most people could present and describe various positions on an issue and from their descriptions you could not determine what their personal opinion was. In those days you could discuss issues at length and personal perspectives were not an essential ingredient.

I’m afraid the legacy of political correctness is that the overwhelmingly dominant approach now when describing any position on an important issue that is not your own, is to make a caricature out of it and attack it with vitriol.

I was on a board once where someone asked a question as to how does group X think Y works. I offered a dry overview of their perspective. A quick response came back, “how can you think…”, “what about….”, “that is conflicted by …”. My bemused response was, “I am not a fan of X nor do I find their perspective Y with merit and yes I am aware of the shortcomings you mention, but I was answering a question. The questioner seemed to already be aware of the perspective you are advocating, so I did not provide that”. The person challenging me was amazed at that response. I hadn’t occurred to him that you could just describe a position you did not hold without heaping scorn on it. Sadly we appear to have lost the ability to discuss things without emotional advocacy coloring the discussion. It’s hard to build bridges in such an environment.

Planning Engineer, I don’t know how old you are (I am 67). I think if the “good old days” you remember did exist it was probably because the extent of media coverage and communication (blogging etc.) back then (the 60’s?) was magnitudes less.

Concerning political correctness, the practice of referring to climate change skeptics as deniers, with the obvious allusion to the Holocaust, has become so common place that to object to it today one would be considered thin skinned. As a Jew, I find it insulting every time I hear it. I find it particularly distasteful when the term is used by other Jews with little regard for the trivialization of history.

As a jew, I find it particularly distasteful when people trivialize the problem of holocaust denial by equating the use of the term “denier” in the climate wars to those who deny that my relatives burned in ovens.

Mark – I’m a decade behind and was in college in the 70s. During that time “political correctness” was just making inroads, but more of a fringe idea in most of the places I was. Most professors hadn’t been swept by the tide yet. University’s supported free speech pretty strongly. Even in the social sciences you typically wouldn’t know a Professors politics unless maybe you chatted with them in their office (unless they were in a politicized sub discipline) and upon learning it you could be quite surprised based on the content of their lectures and discussions. It was common practice to encourage students to read journals from differing perspectives. Back then the remedy for bad speech was not suppression of the bad speech, but more speech. The hope was that in a fair exchange of ideas the good ones would win out.

I don’t solely blame the “politically correct” movement that invaded campus as resulting in the problem today. But it did rob the cause of free speech of it’s biggest defenders. There were other groups across the political spectrum that contributed to the decline and as you note people began to tailor their media sources to match their prejudices.

Some might call this a silly longing for the old days, but it shows there was a model of teaching which once worked quite well and possibly could be replicated again.

“At its core, global warming denial is like Holocaust denial, an assault on common decency.” – David Fiderer, The Huffington Post (2009)

“The deniers of climate change are cut from the same cloth as Holocaust deniers. They’ve never been to the death camps, Auschwitz and Birkenau, so what they haven’t seen does not exist.” – Charles Larson, American University (2013)

“It’s about the climate-change “denial industry”, …we should have war crimes trials for these bastards – some sort of climate Nuremberg.“- David Roberts, Grist Magazine (2006)

“Let’s just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers.” – Ellen Goodman, Boston Globe (2007)

“There are many more traits that the climate deniers share with the creationists and Holocaust deniers and others who distort the truth.” – Donald Prothero, Occidental College (2012)

“I think these people are anti-science flat-earthers. …They are every bit as dangerous as Holocaust deniers.” – Guy Keleny, The Independent (2013)

“Surely it’s time for climate-change deniers to have their opinions forcibly tattooed on their bodies.” – Richard Glover, The Sydney Morning Herald (2011)

“Denialism, a concept that was first widely used, as far as I know, for those who claimed that the Holocaust was a fraud, is the concept I believe we should use.” – Robert Manne, La Trobe University (2009)

“The primary motivation for most deniers is anti-Semitism, and for them the Holocaust is an infuriatingly inconvenient fact of history. After all, the Holocaust has generally been recognized as one of the most terrible crimes that ever took place, and surely the very emblem of evil in the modern age. If that crime was a direct result of anti-Semitism taken to its logical end, then anti-Semitism itself, even when expressed in private conversation, is inevitably discredited among most people. What better way to rehabilitate anti-Semitism, make anti-Semitic arguments seem once again respectable in civilized discourse and even make it acceptable for governments to pursue anti-Semitic policies than by convincing the world that the great crime for which anti-Semitism was blamed simply never happened—indeed, that it was nothing more than a frame-up invented by the Jews, and propagated by them through their control of the media? What better way, in short, to make the world safe again for anti-Semitism than by denying the Holocaust?”

That doesn’t sound like a dangerous situation for Jewish people?

Maybe consider this from Wiki:

“Holocaust denial is explicitly or implicitly illegal in 16 countries: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Switzerland, and Romania[171]—a country that denied the Holocaust occurred on its territory up until the Wiesel Commission in 2004.[172][173] The European Union’s Framework decision on Racism and Xenophobia states that denying or grossly trivializing “crimes of genocide” should be made “punishable in all EU Member States”.[174] Slovakia criminalized denial of fascist crimes in general in late 2001; in May 2005, the term “Holocaust” was explicitly adopted by the penal code and in 2009, it became illegal to deny any act regarded by an international criminal court as genocide. The Parliament of Hungary adopted the most recent legislation, which declared denial or trivialization of the Holocaust a crime punishable by up to three years imprisonment, in February 2010.”

Not sure why 16 EU countries would consider and adopt such legislation if the ‘crank fringe’ of holocaust deniers were not considered dangerous.

I wonder Michael how you could possibly think there is no actual danger in antisemitism.

Michael, do you think it was just coincidence that one of the French terrorists found hostages at a Jewish grocery? I mean he had a whole country of possible sites to find hostages and he just happened to find a Jewish grocery. How big of a leap would you think that maybe, just maybe his ideology would support the idea of holocaust denial? Is there any reason to be skeptical that his ideology supports antisemitism? And if you are Jewish, is there any reason to not find this dangerous?

But my comments to Michael have really just been preaching to the choir as Michael knows holocaust deniers to be dangerous. So what he is emphasizing is that ‘these flat-earthers’ (climate change deniers) are MORE dangerous than holocaust deniers.

a lot of hypotheticals. What are the actual dangers posed by Holocaust deniers? Pretty much zero – there are few of them, and their extremist views make them outcasts.

The terrorists – you think they chose a jewish grocery store because they deny the Holocaust??? You don’t really believe that.

Now, Michael Mann, I really think there is some identity issues motivating some of the people who so relentlessly attack and vilify him, but I’m even more sure sure that it’s got absolutely nothing to do with Holocaust denial.

I see you found “some” examples of where “some” people compared holocaust denial with denying the science of climate change. But I would say that most people are using denier as a pejorative with the intent to ridicule and holocaust denial is the last thing on their mind. I would hazard to guess that 99.999% are not thinking of holocaust denial or anything related. Have you seen anyone here try to equate denial of climate science with that of the holocaust? I personally don’t use the term in my conversations with “skeptics,” but I do think it is useful in characterizing some of the people who are “skeptical” of climate science.

New paper in new climate psychology journal, Settled Science, by Lewandumpsky, Crook, Nutticelli, et al finds with great robustness that 97% of smarmy little warmist trolls are metaphysically certain that they are morally and intellectually superior to the denier untermenschen that they obsessively annoy on skeptic blogs. I’ll get you link for the non-paywalled site, later.

The trolls spend time on skeptic sites for the luls – they think it is fun to poke “deniers” with barbed words just to make them angry. They are delighted by their power to elicit negative feelings in others. How do you spot a troll? One way, not the only way, is to be aware of your own feelings. If you have been annoyed by a message that otherwise has no information, it is likely coming from a troll. Don’t be drawn into debate with these psychopaths. Instead, give them the opportunity to learn about themselves.

“What are the actual dangers posed by Holocaust deniers? Pretty much zero – there are few of them, and their extremist views make them outcasts.”

Well, enough potential danger for 16 EU countries to criminalize the denial of the holocaust. Or is this just another an example of the precautionary principle run amok?

“The terrorists – you think they chose a jewish grocery store because they deny the Holocaust??? You don’t really believe that.”

Of course not. That’s not what I said. My point was the terrorists hold an ideology that is antisemitic. Holocaust deniers are antisemitic. I’m not sure there is such a thing as a holocaust denier who is not also antisemitic. Maybe there are vegetarian tigers too. It would not be a stretch to think the terrorists agree with holocaust denial based on their antisemitic ideology. They certainly have displayed dangerous behavior. They are part of a not so small fringe that would like to destroy not only western civilization, but Israel as well. They are not outcasts with extremist beliefs in the areas they control. They control significant amounts of territory in the ME and influence the politics of the region. They are part of a dangerous, antisemitic, holocaust denying people. They pose real danger to Jews and westerners alike.

I wonder if Joshua would consider the idea of equating antisemitic holocaust deniers who control significant territory and influence in the ME as just extreme fringe outcast folks not really posing any actual danger as a trivial matter?

While the “climate wars” surely involve highly visible and outspoken scientists, there are countless academics, government pencil pushers, and propagandists in the media that move the ball down the field behind the scenes.

Even if there was a modicum of transparency to the “process”, the free press is not particularly interested in exposing, investigating, or reporting on aspects of climate science which may be embarrassing for its practitioners. Instead, the media focuses on “narrative” e.g. “hottest ever year”. The details are too nuanced and confusing for both journalists and editors. It is much easier for them to regurgitate talking points provided by scientists, think tanks, etc.

Anyone who challenges the prevailing global warming narrative is immediately called a variety of names. This language is undeniably from one side of the aisle — the professional left. One should look at Mann et al. always through the prism of political ideology when disentangling their motivations which are hardly “pure science”.

Here’s another way to make the parallel of Mann and Charlie Hebdo. Both echo mainstream views, but very vocally and in ways designed to create reaction and to divide opinion, and this attracts anger. In Mann’s case it is from the skeptical fringe, like Steyn and a few others, and in Charlie’s case from the extremists there. They therefore act as lightning rods for the mainstream views by expressing them in an emphasized form, and sometimes lightning strikes. And when that happens, the mainstream majority comes to their defense, although in a qualified way.

As I responded to Joshua, yes, I joined in by trying to make a connection, and am not proud. This is something that couldn’t be discussed on a climate forum unless Judith made a connection, and it was too big to ignore. I appreciate her effort, because it is something it is good to get out even within this forum.

Jim D, I actually thought your narrative was pretty good, as you are capabable of doing, considering the controversial nature of this discussion. I also agree with Michael that trivializing mass murder is dangerous ground. I just don’t know if it rises to that level. I limited my comment being cognizant of that.

==> “If you really mean that joshie, you should be too disgusted to hang around here any more. ”

I don’t find it “disgusting,” Don. I find it sameolsameol. People from both sides of the fence regularly employ rhetorical overreach to score climate war points. Judith included. The outrage about the term “denier.” The constant appeals from both sides about the “starving children” in Africa. The appeals to “truth” in science.

I don’t question that Judith thinks free speech is important, nor that she’s horrified by the murders in Paris. The fact that she employs rhetorical overreach doesn’t say anything about her personally except that she’s willing to engage in over-the-top advocacy. We all do it from time to time.

One of the problems in these discussions is that victim-card playing combatants need to view their counterparts as sociopaths to reinforce their own sense of self.

Joshua, I am the poster child for outrage about usage of the term denier to describe skeptics. I am outraged still.

It is a political rhetorical device used to equate skeptics with deniers of the Holocaust. There are many who would like to use it in its traditional sense, but the term has been corrupted by those who use it more viciously.

The outrage stems from the deliberateness with which it is used and the obtuseness with which it is defended.

It might be a bit dramatic, but most believers seem to prefer avoiding a substantial conversation by picking their favorite ad hom. Denier would be an ad hom I believe.

You are a classic example if you think back to the Heimlich Maneuver issue. One “scientist” with 29 data points and one negative result condemned the use of the Heimlich Maneuver while ignoring over 20,000 documented cases that went against his results. You opted for the PITA approach rather than participating it what could have been an interesting discussion :)

None are intended to be irreverent. But I think you will see I know where to draw the line. The Charlie Hebdo cartoons WERE tasteless. And it wouldn’t surprise me to see a couple of nuts blow up a similar anti Christian or anti Israel publication in the USA.

The “west” has its share of nuts. Do you remember Oklahoma City and the room full of little children blown up by McVeigh? Or the norwegian guy who murdered a bunch of youngsters a couple of years ago?

“The “west” has its share of nuts. Do you remember Oklahoma City and the room full of little children blown up by McVeigh? Or the norwegian guy who murdered a bunch of youngsters a couple of years ago?”

Oklahoma City is not the right case for comparison.

I talked to a Federal agent in the mid 80s who had spend two years in North Dakota and Montana infiltrating the survivalist/supremacist/militia groups.

Then I looked at the information on Waco and Ruby ridge. It is pretty clear that the US was targeting some groups on the right of the spectrum in an abusive way for at least 20 years if not longer and that Federal agents were using their powers in a abusive and arguably illegal way (there were other incidents).

After the US killed about 4 score of them in two separate incidents. At Ruby Ridge, the result of an entrapment effort by the ATF, Federal agents on the Weaver property shot his dog in front of the 14 year old Weaver boy and killed the him when when he (not surprisingly) took shots at them. They then killed his unarmed mother who was holding her baby.

The fact that many of the Ruby Ridge personnel were involved in Waco indicates that a summary firing of the Ruby Ridge personnel could have prevented further senseless tragedy.

The actions of the Federal government as highlighted by Ruby Ridge and Waco outraged certain groups and was going to provoke some kind of reaction sooner or later. Oklahoma City was what is called a “brushback” in baseball. Since Oklahoma city until 9/11 Federal agents were treading more carefully. Not sure of the status since 9/11.

The Fast and Furious operation indicates that the ATF is still out of control and that these tax collectors should go back to collecting taxes and be stripped of their other authority.

It would be better to have Americans armed with military grade weaponry than to allow the continued existence of the ATF in its current form. The ability to use SWAT/No-Knock tactics on American soil should be severely restricted by statute.

I will restate this, because I think it is still relevant. If there is a parallel, it is Mann that is the cartoonist attacking the extremists, and the skeptical fringe, particularly in the US, that single him out for attack, as his recent “Serengeti” article lays out.http://bos.sagepub.com/content/71/1/33.full.pdf
Mann is not a typical climate scientist because he makes it his business to publicly go after the extreme skeptics while most others would not offer any public opinion on them. Again, this public criticism is a parallel with the cartoonists and invites attack.

The ACLU, The Washington Post, NBC News, The Los Angeles Times and various other…” organizations “…filed amici briefs opposed to Michael Mann…” – Steyn. I might say Steyn was struck by lightning. Then in both cases, support followed, some of it based on the principle of free speech. Charlie Hebdo and Steyn rely on that principle. Interesting comment Jim D.

Of all the links, the one that is most offensive is the one from Paper Bird, where he says it’s bad form to mock the oppressed in society. To my mind, that makes him complicit in the murders in Paris, and wherever Muslims murder those who criticize their religion. I would argue that the jihadist perpretrators were not at all oppressed, or at least they were far less oppressed than they would have been in their native countries. They had jobs, they were able to travel the world, they had all the freedoms the West offered them. Their problem is not oppression, it’s their demands.

Conrad Black wrote an eloquent column on , a href=”http://news.nationalpost.com/2015/01/10/conrad-black-defending-the-christian-west/”>the challenge to the Christian West

The problem is that elements in the Muslim diaspora in the West are claiming special rights. They are claiming their religion is unassailable, when no other religion is allowed to make the same claim or afforded special protection. Call it what you will but I call it Muslim exceptionalism, which is different from American exceptionalism because Muslims are claiming special rights while American are claiming a special place in history but believe in equality of all people, if not equality of outcome. Muslims are newcomers to the West and some are using violence to destroy our tradition of free expression, a phenomenon that needs to be dealt with firmly. If it means deportation, jail, or shootouts, so be it. Religious tolerance only goes so far.

Freedom of expression means everyone is free to speak as they wish with as few restraints as possible. No religion should be beyond the thrust of the critic’s sabre, especially one in whose name 3000 plus people were murdered on 9/11/2001 and unspeakable atrocities are being committed on a daily basis.

This isn’t about becoming a religious state. It’s about treating offensive religious imagery in the public square the same as other offensive materials like pornography and race baiting. Free speech is not without limits. This is about where a limit should be placed and what the consequences are of deeply offending a class of people with gov’t blessing.

Yes, Judith, I see that. No one but a jihadist would NOT defend that. That’s known as cheap grace. It goes without saying if you live in a free country. But the column represents the worst kind of moral preening and self-important ranting. He’s attacking those who are horrified at the idea that someone would kill a dozen people who simply made fun of a wide range of human foibles. He doesn’t have to say, “I am Charlie.” If he wouldn’t publish the cartoons himself because he finds them “racist” and an attack on the “oppressed,” (which is a blatant exaggeration) fine, but don’t use that as an excuse to shift from the criminality of the actual event in order to attack a few people who are upset and perhaps over-reacted.

He seems oblivious to the idea that this act was a deliberate attempt to cow people into not discussing Islam at all in Paris– the very heart of Western Civilization. Rather than scorn those who are upset by it, scorn the perpetrators and their ilk.

Paper Bird called the cartoons “racist,” which would make publishing them a criminal offense in many European countries. Paper Bird is calling for censorship – albeit in a form that it better tolerated by the secular left. The argument is that you can pick on Christianity and Judaism, but not Islam because only the latter would be racist. It’s a pernicious argument and needs to be fought back against at every opportunity.
The “racism” argument is creeping into the climate debate as well. “Climate Justice” is a theme designed to make it off-limits in polite society – “racist” or inattentive to “the oppressed” – to reject the idea that western nations should tax carbon and send the money to the third world.

It is bad form to mock the oppressed. It is wrong to kill people because they have bad form. And it is also wrong to crank up islamophobia using 17 murders as an excuse to tar and feather people who had nothing to do with the crime.

Who were the oppressed? The Muslim community in France is not oppressed by any stretch of the definition. They were welcomed to France after the war, and some 900,000 of them fled there in fear of their lives after the Algerian War, putting a huge stress on culture. Many were of mixed French and Algerian blood.

I am not attacking peaceful Muslims, many of whom condemned the attacks. I have questions of whether they are adequately policing their own communities to prevent this type of ideology from gaining hold. The best place to combat this kind of thinking is in the neighborhoods where it originates.

Muslims ARE discriminated against in Europe, most minorities are. It’s human nature to do so, and it’s not exactly a bid deal. Minorities get used to it, deal with it, and life goes on.

My point is that it’s very tasteless to draw cartoons insulting others’s religious beliefs. II notice there’s a tendency to become quite defensive when I point out my opinion that indeed those cartoons are tasteless. And I should also point out I don’t think they should be censored.

On the other hand, there is censorship in Europe in certain areas. And it’s so strict I prefer not to discuss it. I think there’s a bit of hypocrisy involved in this case, the murders are being used by islamophobes to fire up their cause. And this is clearly going to escalate the conflict. Long term, I think this is going to end wearing down all sides, the conflict is fired up by the Netanyahu’s and the bin Laden type extremists, but I’m pretty sure both extremist sides will not succeed. However on the way to the end game we are all going to get dragged into mindless and quite stupid medieval style killing waves. It’s the same thing all the time.

Michael, two points.
First, you are free to say almost whatever. Just not wherever. This is her blog, and she has clear previously rules for what comstitues acceptable speech in her forum.
Second, were I her, I would enforce those rules more than she does. Overly tolerant (in my opinion). Free speech here does not mean off topic or irrelevant or vituperous speech. And in general, independent of this forum’s rules, free speech is not unbounded speech. You have no free speech right to falsely shout fire in a crowded theater. Ponder that analogy in relation to some of your own previous blog comment speech here.

I’m not sure I would stand up for inane and irrelevant comments by someone I did know.

Michael: of course free speech has limits – such as yelling fire in the crowded theater or depriving someone else of their free speech right by interrupting them or talking over them. Free speech also includes the right to ignore someone, just because someone wants to talk does not mean you are compelled to listen.

I just realized that the right of free speech should be restricted to people who are polite and well mannered.

No PA. You are free to carry around a sign that says something untrue. Say “Canada became the 51st state yesterday”. March up and down the street with that. Add a picture of two naked people engaging in graphic sex and you’re going to jail instead.

There are limits to free speech. There’s a law against public lewdness. It crosses a boundary where too many people agree it’s in bad taste.

So now we have a group of people who are horrified that their religion is being blasphemed and the powers that be do nothing about it. So they take matters into their own hands. I condemn both the blasphemers and the violence in the response. Two wrongs don’t make a right. The blasphemers paid a steep price for their behavior but I’m very sure they knew they were aware their behavior might antagonize people into just such a response.

jim2, yes.
Michael, either you are dissembling, or you are ignorant of the legal issues behind SLAPP legislation, the CEI appeal, and the Steyn separation. All of which have been extensively discussed,here and elsewhere,,including posts by practicing lawyers. Whichever of the two possibilities might be true in your case, you have revealed your nature and purpose here. My advice would be either leave for friendlier confines, or seriously up your game. Pathetic so far. Worse than Bears against Packers this year.

Mann: “It is similar to what happens when a group of lions on the Serengeti seek out a vulnerable individual zebra at the edge of a herd, which
is why I call it the ÒSerengeti strategyÓ in my book The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars (Mann, 2012).”

The irony is that Mann and his financial backers did precisely the same thing to Tim Ball.

This post is exceptionally poorly conceived and somewhat distasteful. Threats to free speech derive from powerful institutions of the state and not the actions of random madmen. To fail to understand this critical distinction – in the canon of enlightenment thought – is to elevate a form of words over substance. It is freedom of speech as a mantra for the opportunistically political – rather than a considered position on fundamental human freedoms. An important idea free of the source of it’s legitimacy and so reduced to babble.

Mann attempts use the institutions of the state as a weapon to silence critics. Whether this is warranted or not is a fine balance between individual freedom and protection of the individual from harm caused by unrestrained lies. In this case using the complex, ponderous and expensive procedures of law to remedy a slight of no consequence. The essence of frivolous litigation that is intended to restrain freedom of expression. But it is not the same at all as acts of violence by madmen.

A siege in Sydney recently resulted in the deaths of two innocents. Needlessly tragic – but this is not nearly an exclusively Muslim thing. Mass murderers are unfortunately common enough. Unless the experience results in a stronger, wiser, more tolerant and inclusive society – as it did in Australia – it fuels a descent into social madness. The French are showing signs of a much needed coming together as a people regardless of the differences. It is the way to a bright future for all of us.

From two who understand so little of the philosophy of freedom – it means so very little. Sometimes a great notion is perverted in ignorance to serve other expediencies.

How would these barbarians inside the gates of the scientific enlightenment ever know? How would you ever know it from the moral vacuum of progressive duplicity? It is not however the moral question of our time – merely noisy mouth pieces. Froth and bubble heads.

Is this a source of future mayhem? Already they are withdrawing from an unresponsive world – minds reeling with visions of fire and death. It seems only a matter of time.

I stand on the shoulders of giants. Is there any other way to roll? You should try it over a long time of old fashioned inquiry into the nature of nature, art and society – Joshua – rather than skulking in the weeds.

>You demand a world in which freedom is given and not won every day with courage, fortitude, sacrifice and resolve?

Again, nope. Your reply comes from some other planet ? It’s certainly not relevant to my comment. I demand nothing.

I am also from an older generation that is anything but soft. Through humility, I will not claim “courage, fortitude, sacrifice and resolve”, but I have experienced episodes that horrify most people and which were not resolved by softness

“We must make the building of a free society once more an intellectual adventure, a deed of courage…. Unless we can make the philosophic foundations of a free society once more a living intellectual issue, and its implementation a task which challenges the ingenuity and imagination of our liveliest minds, the prospects of freedom are indeed dark. But if we can regain that belief in the power of ideas which was the mark of liberalism at its best, the battle is not lost.
― Friedrich Hayek

There are long fought for and hard won freedoms bought by the blood of martyrs over centuries in battlegrounds where the battle lines are sometimes very obscure.

You have to ask yourself – is the right to be offensive about The Prophet one of these fundamental freedoms to live or die for? Or do you just want to whine about Muslims who don’t have a sense of humour? .

fan, Dylan was asked by activists (in a good cause) in effect to write a song condemning Ever’s killer – their focus and venom was for the killer. Dylan did not focus on the individual, but put the killing in the much broader social-historical context. This led to demands from the activists et al that he become a political leader, when he only wanted to sing, and, as I recall, had been reluctant to get involved in the event at which he sang.

@Rob ” ….. a much needed coming together as a people regardless of the differences. It is the way to a bright future for all of us.”

Agree with this sentiment as the future of the human race depends on this. I am pessimistic that this will happen any time soon, so instead of the word “bright” I suggest that it be qualified as “brighter”.

The proliferation of better education of our children and a more equal treatment of women in general seems to me to be prerequisites for the resolution of the differences in humanity and for a greater emphasis be placed on areas where we all agree.

Peter, the future depends on individuals developing self-awareness, understanding and wisdom. One of my concerns with Islam is that nothing I can see in that religion supports this. While most major religions and many non-religious thinkers advise “Know thyself, “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you,” etc, putting the focus on the spiritual development of each individual, Mohammed’s teachings are said to be the third and final revelation, there is nothing more to be revealed. In Islam, you get to Heaven by following several religious practices, rites and rituals, which to me have no element which contributes to spiritual development, to understanding and wisdom in the individual. This to me is a fundamental difference between Muslim and non-Muslim communities. The difficulties of a “coming together” between two such differing sets of values are apparent in both inter-Muslim strife and Muslim attacks on “non-believers.”

Thank you for responding Faustino. I honestly believe that there is a lot of common ground between Christianity and the practice of Islam. The two religions share many of their ideals and both acknowledge many of the early prophets including Jesus.

The early practice of Christianity had similar issues in that certain idealogical cliques had caused much pain and grief being inflicted on the Islamic “heathens” in the name of God, such as, for example, the Crusades. The inquisitions carried out in the post medieval period in Spain and Portugal, with the full support of the Church of Rome eventually led to the reformation and toward the practice of Christianity that we know today.

Islam today has been hijacked by cultists and idealological groups, such as the Taliban, and subverted the practice of Islam from their early teachings of peacable co-existence, to the extent that ordinary Muslim families are being alienated from their Christian neighbours. I sincerely believe that a Muslim groundswell will ultimately prevail to bring the practice of Islam into line with modern principles of equity and peaceable co-existence.

The difference between the two major religions seems to me to be accentuated by ignorance and a lack of education and equality such that westernised countries now enjoy.

Few will go that extra mile
ter do the Feynman thing,
even freedom of the press
is a ticket ter excess,

… ter irresponsibly seize the day,
salacious gossip and the politics
of innuendo, easy-peasy way
ter sell the ‘news.’
.
Our best hope seems not ter
lie in education, per se,
many philosophy educated youth
in history ended up as dictators.

Colour me sceptical,
not too many Socrates
out there, our best hope,
think serfs, lies in the quality

Peter, you say that you believe that “a Muslim groundswell will ultimately prevail to bring the practice of Islam into line with modern principles of equity and peaceable co-existence,” and that “The difference between the two major religions seems to me to be accentuated by ignorance and a lack of education and equality such that westernised countries now enjoy.”

I’m not convinced. 400 years ago, the telescope was invented in Holland. Within a few decades, telescopes had been introduced from Europe to China, to the Mughal empire in India and to the Ottoman empire (the Caliphate). In Europe, this led to advances through Galileo, Kepler and Newton; a scientific revolution was set in train, which led to great advances, the Industrial Revolution etc and dynamic market economies. The Mughals were interested in the telescope only in respect of their calendar, which was revised on the basis of the Sun revolving around an immobile Earth (the Ptolemaic system). It did not lead to a general scientific advance. Similarly, while telescopes were used by the Caliphate’s navy, the Ptolemaic view prevailed and no advances followed.

European societies were innovative, outward-looking, keen to develop and apply new knowledge, and sufficiently open to prevent the old order from suppressing the new. None of this applied in the Islamic world or China, which were still entrammelled in in traditional religious structures and too subservient to centralised hierarchies to support fee-thinking and innovation. The Islamic countries and China which were once more advanced in many respects than the West stagnated while the West flourished. The discrepancy with Islamic countries was sustained by societies which were, and still are, inward-looking, traditional and hostile to pluralism. So there are entrenched, centuries-long reasons for ignorance and lack of education and equality in Middle Eastern Islam. There are some forces for modernity, e.g. in Iran, but they remain suppressed. The groundswell you foresee does not seem imminent.

Thanks for responding Beth. I enjoyed the way you put your POV across but feel that you and Faustino (and in fact, many of the regular contributors to Judith’s blog) have a somewhat pessimistic view about human nature.

My central point was that cliques seem to be responsible for many of the excesses that have occurred in human history, with the the silent majority looking on and being individually too afraid to do anything about it. But tipping points do occur, when enough was deemed to be enough, and this is the stuff of revolutions.

Not all revolutions have resulted in positive changes but the old orders are swept away and new orders take over. The European reformation certainly assisted in a better uptake of progressive ideas and inventions and this is why they are presently further advanced, culturally and in the equitable treatment of dissidents and the disadvantaged, including minorities. This is not to say that all European nations benefited at the same rate, as we all saw in respect of the Jugoslavs.

The change to the way Islam is practised will not happen anytime soon and probably not in our lifetime, but the average timespans for such socialogical change seem to be in the hundreds of years rather than in the dozens of years, even though, like climate change, the tipping points will come and go relatively suddenly.

Rob, I don’t think the Charlie Hebdo killings were that isolated or self started by those two nuts. The radical Islamist side does get fired up by clerics issuing fatwas or statements which provide cover for retribution for inferred insults. There is an underlying legal framework from which these lone wolfs operate. But the clerics derive their power from islamophobia and the ill conceived wars being triggered in the Middle East. I’m not into censorship, and I myself like tweaking the lion’s nose, but those of us who do it should be wise enough to understand that challenges to dogma can cause adverse consequences. This means Dr Curry was right when she used the Paris event as a trigger for discussion about censorship and retribution in the climate controversy.

Is a free speech protected the same way as the right to murder? In a Communist Czechoslovakia, we were told: “You can say anything, but you have to be aware that there could be consequences”. What?? You can murder anybody, but you have to be aware that there could be consequences.

Curious George, you have delved to the depths of the ‘philosophy of law’. Which is only optional even at HLS. And to which there is no answer.
On the one side, Hammurabi’s code and the presumption of innocence. On the other side, Critical Legal Studies (PC HLS when I was there) teaching that all law is just a way for rulers to oppress the ruled.

Judith, you said that you’ld like to address the issue of freedom of speech aside from the Charlie Hebdo attack. That’s a bit hard at present, given the post-attack focus on the issue. If I address it here, I’ll do so sans CH. But here are two links to Brendan O’Neill articles which, while prompted by the attack, have broader relevance. The Australian has a paywall – I don’t know whether it allows limited access.

I didn’t read the articles, but titles are quite revealing. I live in Europe, and I noticed there are laws I find quite restrictive of free speech rights. They are so repressive I prefer not to discuss the subject in too much detail. I may not end up arrested but I could get my visa suspended and find myself back in Texas.

The Aus (and O’Neill) are predictably full of grandiose rhetoric about freedom of press/speech and the core values of society blah and blah, but it will NOT publish any consistent satirical comment on Sharia law – due to the fear of violent retaliation

When this occurs, it is more than evident that terrorism de facto works

Ian, I don’t know if Bill Leak has addressed Sharia law per se, but he has certainly taken on Islamic extremism in his cartoons in the Oz. In general, the Oz doesn’t do much satire except via James Jeffrey’s light-hearted column.

We have a local case of a state appeals court overturning a county judge’s ruling that anti-gay speech was protected speech. In this case, a worker was fired from his government job for his off time public anti-gay speaking. When the fired government worker applied for un-employment insurance, he was denied because: “the attorney general’s office was justified in firing (this person) in 2010 because his posts on Facebook and an anti-gay blog, as well as his campus visits and TV appearances, clearly had an adverse impact on the agency’s (where he was employed) credibility,” “(this person)’s conduct undermined one of the department’s specific missions-ie the integrity of its anti-cyberbullying campaign.” “By employing an individual such as (named person),….the department undermined it own message.”

The content of what was said is not entitled to protection of free speech under the US Constitution’s First Amendment because of his job in a government office was perceived to adversely effect the government agency’s message. (The named person) was viewed by his boss and government employer as a cyber bully.

As content of speech seems to be the determinant of what is allowed given a specific employment setting, I wonder about warming activists in the US EPA who are members of Greenpeace, World Wildlife Federation, Environmental Defense Council, etc and their job description is one that participates in the rule making process and regulation enforcement for greenhouse gas emissions. What is said in public regarding their views, even with the caveat of speaking as an individual and not as a missionary of the EPA, does this rise to the level of conflict of interest or an illustration of free speech in a setting of government authority?

Likely the warmest position in this EPA is secure as it follows the consensus view. Anyone want to guess as to what may happen to a skeptic? Surely not a team player. A disruptive and disagreeable person who should find employment elsewhere. A situation where a government worker can be fired for “cause.”

RiHoO8, on the “what-is-allowed” pointas a public servant I never publicly addressed the issues for which I had carriage (except e.g. in invited forums to help develop policy), I confined my public comments to areas outside my work role. This was normal public service practice in the UK and Australia, I don’t know if it still is. Our last but one Treasury head certainly adopted partisan and political perspectives in public comments.

On”team players,” I certainly suffered because I wasn’t prepared to play the insider-outsider, support me and we’ll both get promoted game, which too often over-rides considerations of good public policy – particularly at the state level, not so much in my experience in central agencies in the UK and Australia. Again, it might have changed, there seems to be a greater tendency to appoint political allies rather than selection on merit.

The thing I have to guard against is my own tendency to groupthink and an “our gang” mentality. After I thought about Climategate I decided I disagreed with the pilfering and with some of the interpretations put on the emails. After I thought about Mann’s case, I decided that he had a right to sue over one specific matter and Steyn needed to defend a case (which I rather hope he wins). I know most skeps think otherwise, but my own skepticism does not rest on Climategate or the success of Steyn’s defence, any more than it rests on the Pause.

The other thing about which I have my doubts is the identification of so many with Charlie Hebdo. While I can think of nothing more tedious than a French shock/satire mag, it is very clear that those people were taking an almighty risk that I would never have taken. How can I claim identification with them? The wanting to lose oneself in a great feel-good mass is so NOT Charlie. Charlie’s problem was its stark lack of anonymity and stark exposure.

I am definitely NOT Charlie and it is too late to pretend I am by joining an enormous sea of protestors. While I comment as mosomoso for practical WP reasons (I am Robert Townshend of 177 Coucal Road Dondingalong, but don’t try posting and think twice about driving here without 4WD), the truth is I find anonymity to be an easier, softer option.

By the way, for me immigration is like fossil fuel power. My society derives massive benefits from it every day, has always had it, and would sink without it. While I don’t approve of abuses and mismanagement of immigration and I am opposed to all multi-culti PC, I think a racially and culturally static society is about as realistic as an industrial society powered by pathetic wind turbines. It’s pretend stuff.

I don’t agree with Joshua or Michael at all. They don’t appreciate that threats to free speech derive from encroachment on the civil space from government and are seemingly always in favour of more encroachment.

Mosomoso above says: ” … those people (Charlie H) were taking an almighty risk that I would never have taken”

You say: ” …threats to free speech derive from encroachment on the civil space from government”

It’s both of these things. Co-ordinated madmen (random or not) are rightly perceived by Govt to constitute a threat to the public, so one of Govt’s misplaced responses is to curtail civil liberties (eg. Section 18C) to reduce opportunities for the random madmen to find cause – a diminishing return, since in extremis we finish with no liberties to defend and fanatics will always find cause somewhere anyway

I have free speech and I’m aware of reckless consequences. Nothing more is required, especially social engineering from either progressives or mad jihadis

Sooner or later, the extremists will force you to decide whom you stand with. Will you stand with the people who support killing Charlie Hebdo (so to speak), or will you stand with the people who support arresting the killers (or killing them if they resist arrest)? This weekend, many people have sided with the killers of Charlie Hebdo, and many have sided with the police who went after them. When Charlie Hebdo resurrects, so to speak, new assassins will go after them — will you side with the assassins (as a few hundred million people seem to in this case), or with the forces trying to prevent the assassinations and arrest the assassins?

There are times in life when you can elaborate your thoughts ad libitum, but the alternatives forced upon you by the world are painfully simple. I think that this is one of those times.

The Steyn and Charlie Hebdo differ in part because no one is attempting to assassinate Steyn. So the choice of sides is more refined. But there are people attempting to assassinate those who criticize Islam, particular Islamic practices, or Islamic leaders. No matter who you are or are not, you will be forced to choose.

Will you buy a copy of The Satanic Verses? It was no great risk, but I did buy a copy for no other reason than the fatwa against the author, translators and publishers. When I can, I’ll purchase some copies of Charlie Hebdo that are especially critical of Islam. Without strong resistance, the zealots will eventually kill all critics, and all criticism.

Matthew, mosomoso can speak for himself (and does so very well), I’ll say that he is an independent and very sensible thinker. I’m sure that he would never condone the attack on Charlie Hebdo, or the motivation behind it, and believe he would condemn them, but will he ever feel “forced” to choose? I suspect not.

Matthew, I find Charlie Hebdo and The Satanic Verses unreadable. On the other hand, I like Max Brenner chocolate so I’m happy to push past tosser leftoid picketers to support that business.

On the other hand, if it becomes legal for citizens to push the button to execute cold blooded assassins I will not hesitate to push if asked. No charge for zapping convicted terrorists.

Nothing – absolutely nothing! – I wrote implied sympathy with the killers or lack of support for those charged with apprehending them. I’m actually tempted to use that hideously patronising expression of some denizens: “read harder”.

mosomoso: I wrote implied sympathy with the killers or lack of support for those charged with apprehending them.

I didn’t say you sympathized with anything. “Read harder”: I wrote that (imo) you (and I and everyone) will have to choose whom to stand with. I think that your (and my) freedom to have an independent mind will depend on the Charlie Hebdo assassins and their allies (9/11 bombers, Madrid bombers, London bombers, Jakarta bombers, Boko Harum, etc, etc) being defeated.

Faustino: . I’m sure that he would never condone the attack on Charlie Hebdo, or the motivation behind it, and believe he would condemn them, but will he ever feel “forced” to choose? I suspect not.

I didn’t write that he condoned the attack.

You “suspect” not. Is “suspicion” an adequate state of mind here? For now, probably. But I expect the violent Islamists to force the issue (as the violent KKK did in parts of the US in times past — and there are many examples from many places and times.)

George Orwell wrote, with reference to the Nazis, that “[Objectively, pacifism supports the Nazis.]”

Matthew, I in no way implied that you wrote that mosomoso “condoned the attack.” You said that he would be “forced to decide” whom he stood with. I was confident that moso would be against the attack, hence my statement; I didn’t think, from what I know of him, that he would ever feel “forced” to choose. But I don’t know that; hence “I suspect not.” That related to mosmoso, it had no implication as to whether or not the jihadists would, as you expect, “force the issue.” My view is that they probably will, given their raison d’etre and modus operandi (multilingual? Moi?!), but I was addressing only your comments on moso.

Matthew, I am not going to say “read harder.” I value your contributions and responses on CE. I thought that my post was clear; you have read into it things that were neither present nor implied. So it goes, historically – probably less now – I expressed myself very precisely, but was often misinterpreted. “Only connect.” Well, sometimes, unfortunately, we don’t.

Asking me, even rhetorically, if I will side with the assassins (“will you side with the assassins”) is implying plenty, don’t you think?

Fortunately, I don’t have to decide whom I stand with. I stand for ruthless pursuit, prosecution and execution of terrorists. And I don’t even care if they have a point of view. I don’t care what Duke Godfrey or Bohemond did to their forebears. Once they start shooting up a Sydney cafe visited by Squiggle, my three year old grand nephew who likes his posh chocolate, they’re only good for execution. I don’t want disrespect, humiliation or pain for these people. I want their death, that’s all.

Being from Australia, where lame satirists are government funded, I am heartily sick of man-boys and man-boy humour. Here our man-boys would not dare offend Muslims or anybody who might hurt them back, so I admire the courage of Charlie Hebdo. But do I identify with either Charlie’s outlook or its courage? I don’t want to agree with its outlook and I can’t pretend to share its courage.

Buying a copy of Satanic Verses or Charlie Hebdo requires no courage at all. (Reading them requires a very high threshold of boredom.) Openly keeping premises where such publications are produced, displayed or sold requires great courage. It requires more courage than I have or would want to have, since Rushdie and Charbonnier do not speak for me. I speak for me.

In short, I don’t want to buy or read Charlie Hebdo or the Satanic Verses. I DO want to read of the death or life-long imprisonment of the loops who murdered at Charlie Hebdo.

mrm: Sooner or later, the extremists will force you to decide whom you stand with.

Not yet.

I grant that buying the Satanic Verses did not amount to much. The only thing in its defense was that it was better than doing nothing. As to Satanic Verses being boring or unreadable, that was never the issue. Literary reviews made me think that I would not like it, and I have not read it.

Retired Lt. Col. and Fox News Strategic Analyst Ralph Peters said that the US must avoid nation building and overlitigating the war on terror and instead “leave behind smoking ruins and crying widows” on Friday’s “O’Reilly Factor” on the Fox News Channel.

Gee. That reminds me of the climate wars, and what “skeptics” have to say.

To answer your self serving question, quite well at proving your utter irrelevense other than as some echo in this chamber.
Otherwise, not so good at all.
Interesting you had the huge ego to even ask. Wow.

The Stepford students thing is interesting. It is a sign of a stable culture that people can disconnect themselves from politics and world affairs so much and wrap themselves in a fuzzy warm blanket of American entertainment and culture. The outside world has no effect on the average young person going through high school and college. Occasionally celebs, who are generally better informed by their own travels, will try to raise an issue in world affairs such as global warming, but that doesn’t seem to inspire many. The American public is very isolationist in attitude, even if their leaders aren’t, and I think that is because their life is not impacted by things beyond the borders. Even when we had two wars in the last decade few would say it had a noticeable effect on their lives. Foreign countries are good for little more than the tourism form of entertainment.

Spare us the celebrities are better informed. Have any of them ever had an original thought in their lives? They come from the same incubator as the leftists in the cloistered echo chambers of academe. They deserve each other.

Governments routinely make pornography, snuff films, and so forth illegal in public. This was aboout decision of what to allow, individuals who wanted to push the envelope of decency by publishing things that were as deeply offensive as anything imaginable to certain cultures, and they paid a price for it.

From the article:
…
The Center for Security Policy’s report, Shariah Law and American State Courts: An Assessment of State Appellate Court Cases evaluates 50 Appellate Court cases from 23 states that involve conflicts between Shariah (Islamic law) and American state law.

These cases are the stories of Muslim American families, mostly Muslim women and children, who were asking American courts to preserve their rights to equal protection and due process. These families came to America for freedom from the discriminatory and cruel laws of Shariah. When our courts then apply Shariah law in the lives of these families, and deny them equal protection, they are betraying the principles on which America was founded.
…

Current college and university faculty brainwash their students because they have been brain washed themselves. The greatest coup of 60s radicals, when they discovered they were never going to get their Marxist proletarian revolution, was to move into and take control of the educational colleges of this country. (There was a similar move by secular humanists to take control of Catholic seminaries around the same time – see the book Goodbye Good Men.)

Forget the 95% rate by which black Americans vote for the Democrat Party. I suspect that Ph.Ds in education vote for them 100%.

What do you get when all your professors are progressives, and are taught that every subject from philosophy to earth science should be taught from a progressive stand point? Today’s crop of budding fascists on college campuses across the country.

Current college and university faculty brainwash their students because they have been brain washed themselves.

That sounds a bit alarmist there, Gary?–

“Total taxpayer investment in K-12 education in the United States for the 2004-05 school year is estimated to be $536 billion. [ * ]

Even in this current time of the war against terror, taxpayer investment in education exceeds that for national defense. In addition to the K-12 money mentioned above, taxpayers will spend an estimated $373 billion for higher education in the same school year. As depicted on the chart below, the United States is a world leader in education investment. However, nations that spend far less achieve higher levels of student performance.”http://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/fed/10facts/index.html?exp

“In December 2012, the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) released national average results from the 2011 administration of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan promptly issued a press release calling the results “unacceptable,” saying that they “underscore the urgency of accelerating achievement in secondary school and the need to close large and persistent achievement gaps,” and calling particular attention to the fact that the 8th-grade scores in mathematics for U.S. students failed to improve since the previous administration of the TIMSS.”http://www.epi.org/publication/us-student-performance-testing/

It seems to me if in general, there less effort in brainwashing and more effort in teaching, the students would do better- and they might enjoy it more.

Do you know what “brainwashing” entails? Does school really sound like this?

Because brainwashing is such an invasive form of influence, it requires the complete isolation and dependency of the subject, which is why you mostly hear of brainwashing occurring in prison camps or totalist cults. The agent (the brainwasher) must have complete control over the target (the brainwashee) so that sleep patterns, eating, using the bathroom and the fulfillment of other basic human needs depend on the will of the agent. In the brainwashing process, the agent systematically breaks down the target’s identity to the point that it doesn’t work anymore. The agent then replaces it with another set of behaviors, attitudes and beliefs that work in the target’s current environment.

And one of the problems often heard is that discipline problems have gotten worse in some schools. Sounds like the opposite of “brainwashing”

“I just don’t get why Muslims hate Charlie Brown so much,” she proclaimed,” It’s good wholesome, family entertainment. I would think religious conservatives would enjoy that kind of thing.

“But I mean you just can’t win with these people. Every little thing you do offends them. First it was burning the Quran. Then it was that whole CIA ‘torture’ scandal Now it’s Snoopy, Lucy, Pigpen and the whole gang.

“Well guess what? I don’t care if you don’t like Snoopy. That’s no excuse to go around murdering people.

“I can’t stand Dilbert. And don’t even get me started on The Boondocks. But that doesn’t mean I go round shootin’ up the place.”

About
The Daily Currant is an English language online satirical newspaper that covers global politics, business, technology, entertainment, science, health and media. It is accessible from over 190 countries worldwide – now including South Sudan.

That kind of ridiculing of Palin is totally unacceptable. I can’t believe that you’d promote something like that. It’s a slur against Palin – obviously something you support because you are a statist, fanatitcal, aulthoritarian who’s indifferent to starving children in Africa. There really should be serious consequences for people like you who smear a good woman like Pal…

I believe people should have the legal First Amendment right to call others deniers in non-holocaust situations (where I believe the term is most appropriately used). However, I believe they should forego the use of that right (just as you should forego using many legal rights you have in particular circumstances) out of respect for the Jewish experience and the currency the term “denier” has obtained with respect to Holocaust Deniers. Based on the past 80 years of history, I believe the term “denier” should be reserved for special condemnation of Holocaust Deniers.

If, however, Jews don’t insist on preserving the use of the term in connection with Holocaust Denial and term comes into general usage as meaning, essentially illogical, in the terms of the people using the term to attack the scientific positions of others, then I am more than willing to use the term to criticize dummies, such as Michael Mann and Peter Gleick. Once the term comes into common usage, it loses the hateful connotations that are intended by AGW extremists, and they will have to invent a new term to heap undeserved opprobrium on others and to excuse their lack of rigorous thought.

So far, I have avoided using the term, but if warmists continue to use it without much push back, then it is appropriate for everyone to use the term to criticize unscientific thoughts and methods.

There is a point being missed in all this tribal chest thumping. Police and armies are paid to hunt down and kill if necessary fringe madman. That’s part of what makes police and armies such critical components of the architecture of freedom and democracy.

These madmen can’t take our freedoms unless we allow them too. It demands a more robust response than whining about these awful people restricting our freedom to make offensive jokes about The Prophet.

We could try the same with Mann’s lawyers – but I suspect that way lies social madness. Imagine a world without lawyers.

I am going to pull a Willis here…I love you Judith, but this is indefensible foolishness:

“Anyone defending the satirists at Charlie should have a tough time defending Michael Mann in his legal war against the satirical writings of Mark Steyn and Rand Simberg.”

First, I don’t recall that satire is a defense that Steyn, Simberg et al have made in the silly D.C. courts. If it is, it remains to be seen if it will have any effect on the outcome.

Second, the case is still alive in the courts and as long as it is being adjudicated Mann’s supporters have good reason to stand by their little man. It is silly of you to suggest that they face some kind of conflict in sympathizing with Mann, while condemning the Paris murders and voicing support for free speech. Follow me, so far? What you appear to be trying to do is to put Mann’s supporters in some flimsily constructed ethical box that requires them to abandon Mann, if they support free speech for Charlie et al. You are confused. There’s more, but that should do it.

The sensible thing for you to do is re-examine your words and decide if you want to keep going with that nonsense.

You are in denial, Judith. Do you know how long the alleged Prophet whose name we won’t mention has been dead? He can’t be defamed. There is no lawsuit that has survived the first level of the silly D.C courts. There is no similarity between the Mann vs. Steyn, Symberg et al case and the murderous reaction of religious fanatics to some really juvenile cartoons.

If you see some significant similarities, please list them. Oh, it’s about free speech. If you support expression by juvenile cartoons about somebody who has been dead for 1000+ years, then you have to support Steyn et al against Mann’s lawsuit. You can’t ethically hold the opinion that Mann has been defamed and call yourself a supporter of free speech. Dems da rules.

“Oh, it’s about free speech. If you support expression by juvenile cartoons about somebody who has been dead for 1000+ years, then you have to support Steyn et al against Mann’s lawsuit. You can’t ethically hold the opinion that Mann has been defamed and call yourself a supporter of free speech. Dems da rules.”

Judith, that’s me playing your part in the discussion. Since you won’t give a detailed response, I thought I could help you.

Steve, that’s a thin thread. There is no good reason to link the Mann defamation case to the carnage in Paris and the rallying around by just about everybody to support free speech. Everybody understands that means free speech with limits. Defamation is a limit. Mann sued. It’s his right. In may countries saying that it’s your opinion that there was no Holocaust, or that it wasn’t that bad, is illegal speech. Try publishing a satirical cartoon about it. Taking the opportunity to link theis with the Mann case is unseemly. Period.

Don,
Not a thin thread, more like a thick rope. It is ONLY ‘offensive’ speech that needs protection, not ‘sensitive’, ‘caring’, or conformist speech. Yes, there are indeed lots of places where speech is much less than free, including much of Europe, with their nutso laws about what you can and can’t say about the Holocaust. And US university campuses are close behind with certain speech officially prohibited. I object to those laws and prohibitions as well, odious as some of that speech may be. As I said before, it is uncommon for you to be so very wrong about something so important. I suggest that you think this through again.

Don is right. When you argue that defamation is protected by free speech, you are saying anyone can just make up any lie about you, including allegations of deliberate fraud, and put it out in public with impunity. What kind of world is that? Thankfully the civilized world does not protect that. Mann is allowed to sue to officially counter the allegations and get the result on record. That is his right. Many publications have been sued for false accusations to get retractions, and this is another such case.

Steve, the Mann case is about one citizen suing another citizen for alleged defamation. It happens every day. Defamation is not protected speech around here. The U.S legal system will decide if there is defamation in the Mann case. I don’t see any reason to mention Mann-Steyn in the same sentence with the massacre in Paris. Different story. Simple as that. Judith has just given her trolls some live ammunition. She should cut her losses.

It makes perfect sense. There’s really no comparison between Islamic radicals assassinating those who blaspheme their religion and Michael Mann using legal recourse against those who blaspheme his religion.

Don,
I think the Mann case is a SLAPP, and at some point in the process I expect a court will agree. Mann is no private citizen who was defamed, he is a public advocate for a political POV, and regularly writes very dubious things about people who he disagrees with politically.

I think you are misreading me, Steve. I am not on Mann’s side. I think he’s a creepy little crybaby. I said he is a citizen. I didn’t say he is a private citizen. Public figures are not fair game for defamation target practice. They file defamation lawsuits and win. The suit in the silly
D.C. court should have been slapped out. Like you I expect it to die when saner judges look at it.

Now I am still waiting for someone to tell me how the Mann case is similar to the Paris massacre. If you believe that the Mann case is a loser, then how is it a threat to free speech in the Western democracies? It may be a threat to free speech in the silly District of Columbia, but that’s it. End of story.

Meanwhile, Judith just digs herself in deeper. This silly post has not resulted in a useful discussion on free speech. It has just given the trolls a good excuse to run amok.

Nope, Don, you’re missing a boat here. There is a two-pronged, but unco-ordinated attack on the enlightenment, religiously from militant Islam, and scientifically, from the alarmist establishment, read Green Blob.

It is a fanatic and panicked attack and cannot carry the middle. I’m waiting for them to find cause to attack each other.
==============

–First, I don’t recall that satire is a defense that Steyn, Simberg et al have made in the silly D.C. courts. If it is, it remains to be seen if it will have any effect on the outcome. —

No the defense is free speech.
If calls Jon Steward a satirists, then could call Steyn a satirist. But would say Mark Steyn seems to love the absurd and there is a lot absurd stuff to talk about. But Rand Simberg is mostly space policy expert.
But there no defense specifially for satire. Though both obviously thought Mann was fool and idiot.

–gbaikie, so free speech is the foolproof defense for defamation. Or is it satire? —
There are no foolproof defense for defamation, due to the fact there is no shortage of incompetent judges.
But did numerous media organizations made the case in court that is was a matter of free speech?
Yes.
As for satire?
Is Mann living embodiment of a satire of science?
Yes.

In cases involving public figures, the defendants can only be liable if their negative statements are verifiable facts. If their statements are matters of pure opinion the defendants cannot be held liable under Milkovich. Please listen to the oral arguments that are posted on Steve McIntyre’s ‘s site. To the extent that satire is part of an opinion, satire is a defense to a defamation action involving a public figure.

Steyn, had an article in May where he doubles down using the title: “Michael E Mann: L!ar, Cheat, Falsifier and Fr@ud”. Is this satire or an accusation? Would a reasonable person say he is just name-calling for the sake of kidding around, or is it his genuine belief and defamation?

@ gbaikie: Steyn is a polemicist who uses satirical techniques. As such he’s more than a satirist. He’s a serious opinion writer who revels in hyperbolic statements to drive home his points. He’s defending the freedom to express opinions, which is the essence of freedom of speech. Expressing opinions with salty language is how he makes his living. Mann has attacked his right to practice his craft as he sees fit.

Mann has enraged Steyn by attacking his livelihood. I don’t think this will end well for him.

@Don Monfort who wrote: “Satire is a defense, but I get the impression that some of these people think you can run around defaming people and then claim you were just kidding.

Under defamation law, a claim must be false to be defamation. Has it never occurred to you that what Steyn said about Mann could be true? That he really is a bad guy? That taking down bad guys who are public figures is Steyn’s job? That even if what he said is not entirely true that he shouldn’t have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal and lawyer fees? What was he supposed to do if he truly believed in what he said? Suppress it for fear of a lawsuit by Michael Mann?

” . . . If you believe that the Mann case is a loser, then how is it a threat to free speech in the Western democracies? It may be a threat to free speech in the silly District of Columbia, but that’s it. End of story.”

Why do you think the anti-SLAPP laws were written in several states and DC? Because this kind of lawsuit has become a commonplace tactic by which public figure can punish people who disagree with them by miring them down in the mud of the judicial system for years. As Steyn said, the process is the punishment. The “silly” District of Columbia is the capital of the world’s greatest nation at the moment. That’s why it was a chosen as the venue for this suit by Mann. He wanted high profile and he got it by suing one of the more respected conservative magazines in the country.

I support free speech. I oppose all censors. I abhor the killings. I mourn the dead.

It is not enough to abhor the killings. The killers must be prosecuted and future killings prevented. Otherwise, the killers continue to censor speech. It isn’t just the killers of free speech, but arrest, jailing, and fining that must be actively resisted. Otherwise we end up back with the Sedition Acts, where all “opposing” speech is considered “offensive” or “seditious”. If we allow the Muslims to decide what speech and print is prohibited because it is “offensive”, then we have to do the same for all groups that feel offended, or else grant Islam special privileges because some Muslims are willing to kill to suppress the expressions that they find offensive.

University presses have declined to publish scholarly works critical of Islam or some Muslims, in response to the threats. In no time someone is likely to be killed for carrying The Divine Comedy, as people have been killed for trying to publish, translate or distribute The Satanic Verses. The idea that you can’t publish what some people deem offensive, merely because they are offended by it, will eventually (if implemented formally or informally) exempt powerful, murderous people from all criticism.

a fan of *MORE* discourse: Matthew R Marler and Jim2, you good-`ol-boys are both invited to verify that Cambridge University Press alone publishes a catalog of more than one hundred books on the topic of terror, plenty of which are explicitly critical of Islamic fundamentalist violence.

“Team America” was produced by a couple of episodes of South Park were suppressed. Not everything has been suppressed yet in consequence of the fatwa against Rushdie and publishers. The question to which we must be alert is whether more and more stuff is suppressed as time is going by.

Is “good-‘ol-boy” one of those liberal “dog whistles”, a pejorative dismissal of a large class of people?

I´m all for free speech. However, there´s a lot of censorship and/or suppression of information going on in Europe and the USA. Some of it is carried out by the government. Some of it is accomplished by ruining careers and ensuring that those with the “wrong” point of view don´t reach a wide public. I can see how it works very clearly because I float back and forth from country to country. Each of them has taboo areas, some of them are enforced more than others.

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Thank you Judith for allowing Michael, Joshua et al the freedom to express their views thus eloquently exposing their hypocrisy in not allowing Steyn any freedom of speech.
Not that we have freedom of speech on any level unless we are not personally threatened by it.
If we insult people, even those who beg to be insulted, we can expect flak.
Cartoons attacking Canadians, Tasmanians, French, Muslims, Women and the Irish to mention a few do not happen if the majority of the audience are those people.
The message here was sadly never one about freedom of speech, it was about instilling an us and them mentality. It was a rallying call to identity to infuse the people back home of the horrors of the western states that go around murdering innocent little terrorists. It will succeed of course but at horrific cost to those involved.

Charlie is a politiical problem, Climate is a scientific problem that has been made a political problem by Al Gore, and others.. Both use free speech as a modus opwrandi. Centuries ago Protestants killed Catholics: depressing ly similar. Why is religion so impottant that we will kill for it?

Can’t say I agree. Muslims are offered a far better place in heaven than Christians, so the hereafter is not a level playing field. Christians don’t offer promises so Muslims probably gain here on credibility.

Just to clarify the limits on Free Speech; if I notice a fire in a trashcan at a theater I’m breaking the law by yelling “Fire?” Inane? Probably, but after skimming a bunch of the contentious comments in this thread I was thinking there must be a bunch of dyspeptic Cowboys fans here getting some cheap therapy. As a 49er Faithful, Schadenfreude bathes my soul.
By the way as I’m typing this a “Southpark” episode that has Satan and Saddam Hussein as homosexual lovers is droning in the background. I’m not sure I’d give up my life to protect their right to put that on, but I will try to buy whatever junk they are pushing during the commercials as a sign of my solidarity.

First off I would like to thank all the closeted bigots for coming out and showing their true colors…I now know who to ignore.

Lots of tone trolling going on here…quite pathetic from a good proportion of you and disappointing to say the least.

Carnage ? Really ? 12 people dead ain’t a carnage folks. We had a blond caucasian in my country slaughter 35 people…funny I can’t recall anyone asking for the expulsion of Caucasian blonds. Another blond Caucasian upped the ante when he took the lives of 77 innocents and he was a christian ! The Danes did not have to apologize for his actions and neither should all muslims be held accountable for what a few misguided youth did in France. The generalizations being drawn here by a few bigots is totally ludicrous.

So the US and their allies have spent the last 20 odd years bombing the crap out of the middle east. In the process they have destroyed several countries along the way and killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people. The region is now in total chaos and resembles what I describe as a Mad Max situation ( after the Mel Gibson early road warrior classics…called something else in the US)The Allies tortured their prisoners with impunity and time and time and time again broke the Geneva conventions. And you wonder why some hot headed and misguided Muslim youths want to strike back…Really?

So the answer from the bigots is to hit back, indiscriminately and hard…jeez we even had one clown here advocate killing hundreds of thousands in retaliation. Well I have news for you Mr Bigot…that will work like it worked to bring the Israelis and Palestinians together in peace and harmony.

And please no more “war on terror” How can you fight a word? One mans terrorist is another’s freedom fighter.

Anyway back to lurking
Anyway 2016 will mark the dawning of the new world…in that year China will surpass the US in having the worlds largest economy. The modern Chinese have learnt that money, not bullets wins the hearts and minds of the people. Sadly my estimation of humans leads me to the conclusion that eventually the rule of brute force will return.

Good point on the bombing. You are off the mark comparing a lone psychopath with a coordinated attempt to undo the enlightenment. This denial, common in Europe, will be your undoing. Have you heard of Ayan Hirsi Ali?

Western values have been nurtured over centuries, millions have fought and died for them, and they have illuminated the path to civilization for mankind. So, if I desire to preserve those values, I’m a bigot? What an ass.

The Charlie Hebdo murders were an act of terrorism, NOT a matter of free speech. Free speech is threatened by Governments or “authorities” who prohibit publishing something. This was not the case here. The French government didn’t prohibit anything (unlike US Universities who have “speech codes”).
This was a pure, horrendous, act of terrorism, unrelated at all to the issue of free speech. The exact grievances that the terrorist claim are irrelevant.

The limits on freedom of speech just don’t work. Inevitably any rules or precedents you establish become the base for other groups to build further rules to shield themselves from. Protect believers of Islam because they are a minority today? Prepare tomorrow for fruit juice drinking cults to pull the oppressed minority card tomorrow. From there the mission creeps and eventually you can’t criticize anyone any more.

To build on Voltaire: I may not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it. Not because I agree with what you have to say, but because tomorrow I might need to say something and if you can’t speak today I can’t be surprised if tomorrow I can’t either.

We make analogies between two cases that have similarities and differences to see how the comparison might provide illumination. With no differences there is no chance for illumination, too strong a difference and the comparison is not helpful.

To me the issue making the Charlie Hebdo murders unsuitable for such comparisons is that it involved irrevocable, harsh and cruel vigilante justice. In various cases there may or may not be remedies for satire that is slanderous, but in the Charlie Hebdo case the resolution process was bypassed by those who would impose their special judgment.

Free people everywhere need to stand up to those who would bypass social contracts to impose their specific will on a people. Such actions should not result in any gains for those who employee such means and consequently we should minimize any resultant harms to the victims. Terrorist vigilante justice should not serve as a springboard for any criticism or adverse reflection on the actions of the victim. If Charlie Hebdo deserves criticism and curtailment that should only be done in a forum far away and removed from the triggering action of vigilante justice. That is a fruit of a poisonous tree. Any response to curtail speech through vigilante justice should be met with the threat and understanding that society will respond to such actions by providing more speech of that sort in a non-judgmental presentation. That’s our best hope to avoid such actions. Having a dialogues that “picks” at the satire accomplishes at least some of the goals of the terrorists.

[…] the issue making the Charlie Hebdo murders unsuitable for such comparisons is that it involved irrevocable, harsh and cruel vigilante justice. […] in the Charlie Hebdo case the resolution process was bypassed by those who would impose their special judgment.

This shows a less than perfect understanding of Muslim culture. As sturdyblog point out, there appears to have been a Death Fatwa against Stéphane Charbonnier. By Muslim standards, this may well have as much legality as the local non-Muslim justice. Indeed, AFAIK this would depend on how Sharia is interpreted.

The problem here is the “clash of cultures” between Muslim/green/PC ideals and the ideal of “free speech”. Certainly there have been climate alarmists who incited against “deniers”, a comparison of such incitement with fatwas against “blasphemers” is certainly in order.

AK – Sincere thanks for the gentle rebuke. It’s kind, as in fact I’m sure I fall well below just having ” a perfect understanding of Muslim culture”. I can certainly agree that from the perpetrators perspective (as with any perpetrator who answer to a higher call) it’s not vigilantism. But for the rest of us I’d think we give precedence to French law in France.

For the bigger picture I can better see the value of a Clash of Cultures” analogy. I was unclear in the above that I was referring to the comparison between the shootings and the Mann-Steyn conflict.

AK asserts “The problem here is the ‘clash of cultures’ between Muslim/green/PC ideals and the ideal of ‘free speech’.”

In regard to “clash of cultures”, the ideal (as it seems to FOMD) is the declaration by the families of the Charlie Hebdo murderers *and* their victims:

The Families of the Murderers “We [the family of Amadi Coulibaly] condemn these acts. In no way to we share those extremist ideas, and we hope that no one confuses those horrific acts with the religion of Islam.”

The Families of the Victims The family of a Muslim police officer killed in the Charlie Hebdo shooting in Paris has urged people not to carry out retaliation attacks. Malek Merabet, the brother of Ahmed Merabet, says attacks on religious buildings and shops will not bring back the dead.

The congregations of French Islam “The UOIF [Union of Islamic Organizations] condemns in the strongest terms this criminal attack, and these horrible murders. The UOIF expresses its deepest condolences to the families and all the employees of Charlie Weekly.”

The GWPF has just sent out an email with similar themes:
Charlie Hebdo, Climate Scepticism & Free Speech
Climate Extremism & The Chilling Effect On Free Speech

Here is one excerpt:

The message is clear: climate change deniers are scum. Their words are so wicked and dangerous that they must be silenced, or criminalised, or forced beyond the pale alongside those other crackpots who claim there was no Nazi Holocaust against the Jews. Perhaps climate change deniers should even be killed off, hanged like those evil men who were tried Nuremberg-style the first time around. Whatever the truth about our warming planet, it is clear there is a tidal wave of intolerance in the debate about climate change which is eroding free speech and melting rational debate. –Brendan O’Neill, Spiked, 6 October 2006http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/1782#.VLPek0uUeKB

“Verification and validation of numerical models of natural systems is impossible. This is because natural systems are never closed and because model results are always nonunique.
Models can be confirmed by the demonstration of agreement between observation and prediction, but confirmation is inherently partial. Complete confirmation is logically precluded by the fallacy of affirming the consequent and by incomplete access to natural phenomena. Models can only be evaluated in relative terms, and their predictive value is always open to question. The primary value of models is heuristic”

Good on ye, Naomi Oreskes for pointing out that climate models are BS!

” So, if even scientists themselves have to make a leap of faith outside their own fields, then why do they accept the claims of other scientists? Why do they believe each other’s claims? And should we believe those claims?”

“So what I’d like to argue is yes, we should, but not for the reason that most of us think. Most of us were taught in school that the reason we should believe in science is because of the scientific method. We were taught that scientists follow a method and that this method guarantees the truth of their claims. The method that most of us were taught in school, we can call it the textbook method, is the hypothetical deductive method. ”

No, dont use the scientific method to judge science, instead:

“If scientists don’t use a single method, then how do they decide what’s right and what’s wrong? And who judges? And the answer is, scientists judge, and they judge by judging evidence. Scientists collect evidence in many different ways, but however they collect it, they have to subject it to scrutiny. And this led the sociologist Robert Merton to focus on this question of how scientists scrutinize data and evidence, and he said they do it in a way he called “organized skepticism.”

consensus

“But this leads us to one final problem: If science is what scientists say it is, then isn’t that just an appeal to authority? And weren’t we all taught in school that the appeal to authority is a logical fallacy? Well, here’s the paradox of modern science, the paradox of the conclusion I think historians and philosophers and sociologists have come to, that actually science is the appeal to authority, but it’s not the authority of the individual, no matter how smart that individual is, like Plato or Socrates or Einstein.”

“We can also think of science as being a kind of a jury”

” It’s a jury of men and women with Ph.D.s,”

” It’s the authority of the collective community”

Naomi is a quack of the highest order. This way of thinking is the crux of the climate lie.

The author they quote from 9 years ago, Brendan O’Neill, just wrote about the Charlie Hebdo incident…….bizarrely he doesn’t mention ‘alarmists’ , ‘warmists’, Michael Mann or his supporters, Mark Steyn or AGW.

As well as the usual suspects like me who are routinely critical of your site there were a number of comments here from your supportive regulars questioning the wisdom of your piece.

It now appears that after reading these and reflecting you have decided that equating your opponents with “racists and anti-semites” was not sufficiently strong, so you need to go the full Godwin and invoke Nazism to achieve the desired effect.

I don’t expect or ask that everyone like what I write. My post has provoked people into thinking about the challenges of free speech in the context of the climate debate, which was the intent of my piece.

My piece was almost 2000 words long. It seems the following 20 words have upset defenders of Michael Mann, a group of people that I am not particularly concerned about upsetting:
“Anyone defending the satirists at Charlie should have a tough time defending Michael Mann in his legal war against the satirical writings of Mark Steyn and Rand Simberg.”

As for pejorative name calling for your opponents:
“In the climate wars, those that use pejorative names for people that they disagree with are the equivalents of racists and anti-semites, and deserve opprobrium and disrespect.”

When person A calls person B a ‘denier’ or any other pejorative word, in my opinion they deserve disrespect, in the context of the broader discussion in my piece.

At the same time, I have staunchly defended the right of people to say disrespectful things.

If I had more time to write this piece, would it have been longer and more nuanced? Yes, but I would not have changed the text that I did write. Have some of the comments here enhanced my thinking on this topic? Yes, some of them. Have your criticisms influenced my thinking? No, they come across as Mannian partisanship rather than dealing with the meta issues of the situation.

> I don’t expect or ask that everyone like what I write. My post has provoked people into thinking about the challenges of free speech in the context of the climate debate, which was the intent of my piece.

==> “My piece was almost 2000 words long. It seems the following 20 words have upset defenders of Michael Mann, a group of people that I am not particularly concerned about upsetting:”

I am neither a defender of Mann, nor am I “upset.”

I am critiquing your poor argument, and your weak reaction to the criticism, such as “your argument makes no sense” just as I would from Brandon when me makes a similarly poor counter-argument.

==> “In the climate wars, those that use pejorative names for people that they disagree with are the equivalents of racists and anti-semites, and deserve opprobrium and disrespect.””

So when you call someone a “denier,” and when you use other pejoratives, you are the equivalent of racists and anti-semites? What about in the countless threads here and elsewhere in the “skept-o-sphere,” where “skeptics” regularly use pejoratives to describe those they disagree with about climate change. Are they, likewise, the “equivalent of racists and anti-semites?”

==> “When person A calls person B a ‘denier’ or any other pejorative word, in my opinion they deserve disrespect, in the context of the broader discussion in my piece.”

What if person A goes by the name of Judith Curry?

==> “At the same time, I have staunchly defended the right of people to say disrespectful things.”

By accusing them of tyrants? By comparing them to McCarthy? Buy equating them to racists and anti-semites? By comparing your own victimization to that of journalists massacred by jihadists?

I am not playing games, Kim. I calls them, like I sees them. Judith is wrong on this one. I am sure her motivation in linking Mann with the massacre was not malicious. But it’s inappropriate and her stubborn persistence is silly. All my very humble opinion. To her credit she has allowed criticism that has in some cases been mean and nasty. They can’t say this is a blog intotolerant of warmist trolls.

This has been a great topic for your blog. The climate debate, such as it is, and the issue of Islamist extremism within a democratic and pluralistic society, share at least two things in common.

1. Intolerance of opposing views: the CAGW advocates towards skeptics and the militant Islamists towards the modern world.

2. Political correctness: CAGW is now part of the spectrum of beliefs of the left in Europe, the Americas, and Australia that stifles debate and marginalizes outsiders. In Europe, in particular, PC keeps large parts of the population in denial about the long term consequences of their current policies and has effectively frozen corrective action. People are unable to even try to dicuss a root cause analysis without being prosecuted for hate speech. PC is now codified in European law. For Europe, the die is cast.

Sadly, a look at the list of recent commenters and the comments to this thread indicate the trolls have hijacked the discussion.

In a strange way, you may be right, Caesar crossed the Rubicon igniting another civil war and the dissolution of the Roman Republic.

Yet the phrase is better translated to: “alea iacta esto” let the die be cast.” The imperative mood, or, more in keeping with Climate Catastrophists exhorting fellow travelers to the barricades, almost like the last gasp of a movement, an ideology about to fall.

It is most likely that the notion of “follow the money”, and in this case, ordinary citizens watching money flow from their pocketbooks to service some sort of expensive ideological unsustainable energy like wind and solar that will lead to the reversing of legislation, legislation that has made energy much more expensive, mandating as the laws do, using the esoteric for the common place.

Climate Alarmism, Islam and other religions reflect the weakness of the cause by the call for the strident and urgent actions of others.

As Garfield says: Have others do for you what you would rather not do for yourself.

I guess you can if you try hard enough. It does seem to me though that the momentum behind the Climate Catastrophists position is dissipating. Activists in this genre leave a certain disagreeable taste in one’s mouth, that, along with the money flow from disposable income, tends to make yet another momentum change back to Catastrophic Climate difficult if not unlikely.

I just read on the BBC page that there is a movement in Parliament to force energy companies to reduce consumer’s bills in the face of falling Oil prices. Notice I didn’t say energy prices. Solar in the UK is still around 70 cents (USD) per kilowatt hour. It seems that energy companies are mired in forward contract issues.

Follow the money. Follow the votes. Follow the New Energy legislation.

Perhaps excesses in free speech are a natural response to the fact that “the mainstream media and Operation Mockingbird set policy, distract people and use word-play to create rainbow spewing unicorns in a world that is falling apart and on the brink of economic collapse”!

The hypocrisy of much of the liberal media re free speech is nauseating although not unexpected. Amongst notable examples are of course the BBC who held meetings to instruct their producers about the dangers of presenting a false balance on climate matters , the Guardian newspaper which as a matter of course moderates out any comments on their Environment website which blaspheme against their CAGW religion, NPR which over the last year has been trying to emulate the BBC as a source of propaganda for the green faith and the mainstream television networks and PBS in the USA who faithfully parrot the CAGW party line at every opportunity.
However what is less expected but really much worse is the self censorship by group-think of the scientific community at large. The current system of publication by peer view, academic appointment and advancement and grant sourcing and awards is structured so as to protect the currently politically correct orthodoxies of the core few scores of academics whose positions and relationships with the IPCC and whose individual Government appointments make them prominent and influential with regard to climate matters.

The Guardian won´t let me write comments anymore. And I can´t figure out why. I was always very careful making sure I didn´t upset their apple cart. I guess they got upset because I did write quite a few comments. Maybe it was my stance opposing dictatorships. They have a weak spots for some pretty nasty characters.

I agree with you. Unfortunately, those self-selecting cabals persist over time and become entrenched, like the monolithic social science departments in US universities. They have become dogmatic, ossified, and impenetrable. For an interesting look inside the anthropology world, see Napolean Chagnon’s book “Noble Savages….”.

The more salient parallel, IMO, between the climate wars and dealing with jihadists, is the way that they both reflect how people approach risk assessment.

In both cases, we have people who focus on proximate risk and events with large emotional impact, rather than consider the impact of events within a long-term view of risk analysis which would include developing policies in the face of uncertainty.
,
In both cases, people take a complacent approach to pattern recognition – satisfying themselves with a recognition of gross similarities that confirm their biases and reinforce their group identifications, and moving forward to pontificate with self-serving narratives.

Realists and Jihadists = same, same but different.

See, the pattern is recognizable. And so I am a victim just like journalists in France, and what we need to do is focus our attention on our intolerant oppressors.

Why bother looking at long-term horizons and discuss tactics and strategies to achieve shared goals? No need. Instead, we can just engage in identity-aggressive and identity-defensive behaviors.

And no, neither are all jihadis the same, IMO (in other words, are Shiite and Shia jihadis the “same?”) – although in fundamental ways they are driven by the same issues.

In fact, some groups of jihadis take great pains to differentiate themselves from each other.

In terms of tactics and strategies, it is important to not conflate unlike entities because of gross (and sometimes superficial) similarities.

You should take the time to differentiate your tactics and strategies according to the specifics of the target.

You shouldn’t target intolerance in the larger Muslim community in the same way that you’d target intolerance from jihadists.

You shouldn’t target intolerance in our society in the same way that you’d target intolerance in the larger Muslim community.

While you might target intolerance among Shiite jihadists in largely similar ways that you’d target intolerance among Shia jihadists, you might also need to consider context or differences as you develop tactics, if not necessarily strategies.

Part of me thinks the satirists knew they were being provocative and should have limited themselves.

But another part of me thinks all religions are anti-scientific, illogical, and cannot survive scientific or historical scrutiny and have no place for thinking people.

Stereotyping any group is erroneous and overlooking nuance.

Reading Bernard Lewis is instructive. The first civilization to fall victim to jihadists may well have been the Islamic empire of the so called ‘Golden Age’.
That empire was liberal ( meaning free ) and advanced science, mathematics, art and architecture. But the very freedom which led to advancement was distasteful to the fundamentalists who attacked the apostates from within. That was some 900 years ago. Ironically, jihadists led to the fall of the Islamic empire.

I’m too tired to target intolerance. I mostly worry about having others tolerate me. I tend to think all religions foster intolerance. Differences of opinion make people intolerant. I’m used to it. And I’m used to hiding when it gets hot.

I think we can lump extremists who intentionally murder civilians or who advocate for doing so in a separate category from other Muslims. In the same way we can distinguish those who bombed the abortion clinics or killed doctors from other Christians. It is more of a legal and moral distinction which I think can and should be made.

I have an exceedingly small threat of losing my freedom of speech or being harmed physically or materially due to a jihadist “threat.” Even the massacre in France, as horrible as it was, and even with the proportionately greater presences of Jihadists in that country, represents an exceedingly rare event. It is rather typical for people to assess risk, emotionally and on the basis of fear and/or ideologically-oriented behavior, disproportionately to the actual threat.

Far more significant is the threat to women, children, and the vast majority of men who live in Muslim countries. Consider the disproportion in the focus relative to the damage and the threat, in comparing what happened in France to what just happened in Nigeria.

To the extent that the threat to me is significant, it is directly related to analyzing strategies and tactics for dealing with the threat from jihadists vis a vis the larger populations Muslim countries.

==> “What does the precautionary principle suggest that France do about immigration policy today?”

==> “A realist would say the French are at far more risk from jihadis today than man-made extreme weather. Perhaps a shift in focus for the UN is in order?”

That is, rather precisely, representative of what I was describing with the tendency for people to respond (emotionally, prioritizing proximity of threat, responding based on identification) when assessing risk. Thanks for that.

“I have an exceedingly small threat of losing my freedom of speech or being harmed physically or materially due to a jihadist “threat.” Even the massacre in France, as horrible as it was, and even with the proportionately greater presences of Jihadists in that country, represents an exceedingly rare event. ”

The IPCC says there haven’t been any extreme events that can attributed to man, so you have haven’t experienced any threat from AGW yet. The rate of warming for the past 18 years says, IMO, you won’t see any threat in the future. And, really, you didn’t know anyone who was in New York or Washington DC on 9/11? That didn’t harm you “materially” at all, eh?

You don’t know how the precautionary principle has any relevance to Islam? Seriously? You cannot think of any reason why the precautionary principle might advise France to take a look at immigration policies? How about the ridiculous policies that apparently allowed radicalized French muslims to take jihad junkets to Syria and Yemen and return to France with advanced weaponry training and orders to use them?

“That is, rather precisely, representative of what I was describing with the tendency for people to respond (emotionally, prioritizing proximity of threat, responding based on identification) when assessing risk. Thanks for that.”

Good for you, you almost got it! I’ll explain- I think you disregard the threat of Islam because it’s not in your political wheelhouse and when others think about it, your political team loses. Further, you want to keep the “precautionary principle” as a means of arguing for any left-wing policy as long as you can draw any tenuous line between the policy you want and anything you can call a threat, however unlikely it is to be a threat. In other words, you find the real and serious threat of radical Islam to be a less interesting topic than the minor and weak threat of AGW purely and entirely due to political motivation. Others think the reverse because, well, they’re putting bodies into caskets.

What I said was that I didn’t know how you were applying the precautionary principle, not how someone might apply it if they were so inclined.

You asked me about a threat of jihadiss, and I explained that I don’t disregard it.

You then moved into a response about how I disregard the “threat of Islam”.

So. I say that I don’t disregard a threat, and then you respond by saying that I disregard a different threat.

I take your questions seriously, assuming a good faith discussion, and you turn it into a pejorative rant?

Unless you explain what you mean, and unless you avoid non-sequiturs, I don’t know how to have a discussion with you. I’m also not inclined to take a discussion seriously with someone who applies guilt-by-association to conclude a moral superiority.

But hey, maybe I can claim moral superiority also if I defend your right to make bad arguments that have little to nothing to do with the comments you’re responding to?

Or maybe I could claim moral superiority by pointing out the moral and ethical similarity between your comment and Jihadists murdering journalists?

==> “The precautionary principle would tell the French to improve their economy, become atheists and pull their troops out of Afghanistan, if they have any left there.”

Sure. It might mean that we would tell the French to help improve economies in other countries, which could take any number of forms. It could mean that we should follow the French lead and stop enriching the governments in the ME who deprive large segments of their populations the basic civic infrastructure needed to fight poverty.

We could apply it in any number of ways. Interesting that JeffN sees such a wide-open concept in such a limited framework, and within that limited framework, offer such a simplistic interpretation as that the French should “take a look at immigration policies?”

No, it’s at the very core of the ideology. It is so alien to western enlightenment thought that we can’t even take it in with our senses and interpret it with our mind without projecting our own world-view upon it. Most Muslims are silent and some have become discretely secular, so it can be difficult for us to sort out who has aggressive intentions from those who do not. Among the silent are many supporters of the radical views.

I used to live in Saudi Arabia and am quite familar with the culture. Try to recognize that all believers in Islam do not share to same detailled beliefs. This is not all that different than Christans having differences in their beliefs.

Imo- the issue with ANY religion/superstition/belief system is when those holding a view attempt to force other to modify their behaviors to be consistent with their beliefs. Sadly, we do this in the US also just not to the same extent.

I currently have a home in TX and you can’t buy booze here on Sunday. A nothing issue, but it is forcing people to modify their behavior in the name of someone else’s religion.

@Rob
The naturally ingrained tolerant side of me wants to believe as you do.
At the same time, I am all too familiar with the side of human nature which silent watches injustice and eggs it on quietly, only shifting to condemn it when called out and pressed hard under the light of scrutiny.

Where is the outrage from people who’s religion has been hijacked?

But not to worry, I despise all religions alike (except science for which I am somewhat fond). The leap of faith required to align oneself with a religion is, unfortunately, the immediate path to its corruption. In order to make that leap of faith one cannot have infidels who don’t believe in it. I(t threatens the adherence to the leap. Thus all religions have a component of condemnation for those who are not a part. That’s the fatal flaw.
Admittedly I don’t know this about ‘all religions’, but its my working hypothesis.

It’s sort of peculiar for a religion to have a precept which on occasion may even demand that the adherent deny his belief. This technique, its requirement satanic, is more useful for a campaign of conquest than of persuasion.

Holy Warriors, Batman! What’s that light in the sky tryin’ to say to us?
============

“Let the waters teem with countless living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of heaven.’”

E.O. Wilson is quoting from the biblical account of the fifth day of creation.

“Isn’t that lovely?” he asks, his voice lilting with pleasure. “Whether you believe that there is a god who touched the universe with a magic wand or not, it’s a command—[one] I think scientists could respond to as well as religious folk.”

We have not met, yet I feel I know you well enough to call you friend. First of all, we grew up in the same faith.

As a boy I too answered the altar call; I went under the water. Although I no longer belong to that faith, I am confident that if we met and spoke privately of our deepest beliefs, it would be in a spirit of mutual respect and good will. I know we share many precepts of moral behavior.

“This summer we have seen one of the most dramatic animal die-offs ever recorded in Australia: at least 45,500 flying foxes dead on just one extremely hot day in southeast Queensland, according to our new research.”

Of the ‘big five’ mass extinction events in the Earth’s history, the end-Permian extinction was the largest.

Song et al. […] show that the selective extinction is best explained by a combination of lethally warm shallow water and anoxic deep water.

Conclusion James Hansen, Ed Wilson, and Pope Francis — as leaders in planetary science, ecology, and religion — are well-justified to regard anthropogenic global warming as a grave threat to the health of our planet and every living creature on it.

It isn’t in the interest of conservation societies to go “life is great, everything is wonderful”. That leads to fewer donations.

I’ve noticed that nobody seems to keep close tabs on recovering populations – only declining ones.

http://iwc.int/estimate
“The estimated rate of increase is 8.2% (95% confidence interval 3.8-12.5%) per year between 1978/79 and 2003/04”

The blue whales have been increasing in population about 8% per year (wiki, a bastion of liberalism, says 7.3). Most area population estimates are from 2000, 2007 or earlier. The global estimate in 2002 was 5000-12,500. That would mean there are about 12,000-30,000 blue whales today. The excess of diversity in DNA samples would lead to the conclusion the population wasn’t as bottlenecked as claimed and the population is on the high side. In about 30-35 years populations will be at historic highs. The Japanese can then harvest a new variety of sushi.

Fan, we had a colony of an estimated one million-plus flying foxes across the Brisbane River from us. The total population in SEQ must be humungous. They obviously thrive in the local climate and environment, and will survive the occasionally more extreme heat; which, I might add, is not more extreme recently than it has often been in the past. People probably said “Good riddance!” then rather than count the bodies..

Faustino | January 12, 2015 at 9:47 pm |
Fan, we had a colony of an estimated one million-plus flying foxes across the Brisbane River from us. The total population in SEQ must be humungous. They obviously thrive in the local climate and environment, and will survive the occasionally more extreme heat; which, I might add, is not more extreme recently than it has often been in the past. People probably said “Good riddance!” then rather than count the bodies..

Maroochydore apparently has too many of them.
.
I’m used to smaller insect eating bats. We are sort of protective of those. The flying fox is about 50 of my bats big. It has to take a lot of fruit to feed a million of them. The suggestion to net your orchards is sort of crazy.

I’m not resistant to netting orchards if the the environmentalists pony up the cost. But the cost of netting and the extra work of dealing with it and maintaining it (spraying the orchard becomes problematic) has to be covered.

How does an animal with a million bat local herd get considered endangered or threatened anyway? That is like saying starlings are endangered. They can still shoot the bats as an orchard pest so the foxes can’t be that threatened.

Flying foxes were perishing en masse in the extreme summer of 1791-2 at Sydney and Parramatta. There would have been no lack of tree cover then, but the drought may have made the difference. (It was part of the monsoon failure which killed millions of humans in India’s Doji Bara famine of the early 1790s).

I’ve never seen mass bird deaths around here, even in the high summer nor’westers a few years back, but they were reported elsewhere. (We’re talking about special conditions which don’t come often, spring winds coming in high summer, and far more lethal than any heatwave. 1791-2 was nor’wester dominated.)

The flying foxes have left me alone lately, since the bower birds have obliterated all that can be eaten. They were heavily hunted by the aborigine, and very easy prey. Even I could hunt a flying fox. Now they are in such numbers here that they can darken the sky a little, on their way to the wild figs in nearby limestone country – or whatever else they’re devouring.

Of the ‘big five’ mass extinction events in the Earth’s history, the end-Permian extinction was the largest.

Lesson-learned Denialism’s conspiracy of willful ignorance is no match for scientific conservationism’s long view!

1. The CO2 level (from ocean sediment studies) in the Permian went up 3K-5K years after the warming started. This Permian story needs work

2. On your ducky thing. Humans have repurposed a lot of animal habitat and distorted the balance of a lot of the environment near them.. I’m somewhat sympathetic to cost effective measures that reduce stress on the native species populations and to managing these populations as a resource. The fact the duckies are doing well is a good thing.

What is needed is a clear and agreed on set of objectives for managing the native species population. If you have taken (for example) 90% of their habitat about the most that can be supported is 10% of the original population. Stories complaining that 90% of the animals have disappeared is repeating the obvious. About the best that can be done is trying to maintain the remaining populations at the carrying capacity of their habitat.

mosomoso, summer of 1791-92, eh? This tends to confirm my suspicion, based on your historic climate knowledge, that you are a First Fleeter whose balanced outlook on life has engendered great longevity. Or vice-versa.

Absolutely not! No convict or serf, I! No military type on half-pay, either. Why does everyone want to belong to the lower orders? My ancestors were back in Ireland still, courteously leaving the work to the working classes. Not that the working classes ever thanked us. Bloody serfs.

Re flying foxes: I think it was the aborigine who accompanied Eyre who amazed by his ability to consume flying fox. It seems that when you got a good bag of them you ate till you were stuffed…and then ate the same again. Before the bower birds learned to strip my shahtoot mulberries when barely formed, the flying foxes would hang feasting in the small tree by dozens, not seeming to care about danger from humans. I’ve heard that, in the normal course, the work of hunting them was left to women and children. I can see why.

nickels | January 13, 2015 at 11:38 am |
Appeals to sentiment dont gloss over the obvious scientific disagreements about CAGW.
Fan says its a horrible problem.
Others say it is a red herring.

Appeals to sentiment are cloying and annoying.

CAGW at this point appears to be off the table. The consensus and other arguments are about AGW and there are failed efforts to claim they support CAGW.

It should be fairly easy from CERES data to show that GHGs have an effect. Apparently water vapor, clouds or other factors are having a greater effect since this data isn’t presented often (a CERES based defense of GHG warming being greater than other factors would be welcome).

Most of the warming since 2000 has been CGAGW (computer generated anthropomorphic global warming) which has little or nothing to do with GHG emissions. The predicted 21st century warming would make CGAGW unnecessary.

So AGW is somewhere between CAGW and a red herring.

It seems that things are changing but it isn’t as fast as predicted and we have time to figure out how great the change is and whether it is mostly good or mostly bad.

Michael Mann called Judith a denier and she rightly complained. Now commenter Michael is upset she analogized the defense of free speech in the Charlie Hebdo case to defense of free speech in the Mann vs. Steyn/Simberg case.

Of course Judith Curry has every right to complain about what names people call her.

The difference between Judith and Michael Mann is she didn’t bring a suit for defamation.

Michael Mann’s lawsuit lacks all merit – everything complained of is opinion and not defamation and it is only a matter of what stage the lawsuit will be won by Steyn/Simberg.

It is very ironic that Michael is trying to get Judith to stop saying something (her analogy).

Perhaps Michael Mann will file a defamation suit against Judith?

That does seem to be his response to free speech.

Hey Michael Mann – in my opinion you are a big baby and your hockey stick is bad science, intended to deceive and be used as propaganda for advocacy purposes.

“In my opinion he thought people would regard his advocacy as science. Not unreasonable since Michael Mann is a scientist.”

I think one could easily be misled to assume Michael Mann is a scientist.
Just as, if someone who was state certified a carpenter, and that one could also assume that person is carpenter.

But personally, I have seen no evident which leads me to the conclusion
that Michael Mann is scientist. And all what he does say, leads me to conclusion that he is not scientist.

I would say, that I have a great deal of respect for scientists- in all subjects- even in questionable fields.
But this is related to what and how do they things.

Though the exception to this respect would be an actual scientists doing things which morally a problematic in terms scientific ideals and standards.
For example the EPA testing of pollution on “volunteers” is example something which could be immoral in terms scientific standards [and probably is]. Therefore scientists involved with EPA human testing could be scientists which I could have zero respect [though I kinda doubt real scientists were actually involved- though it is possible]. .
I mention this exemption not because it related to Mann, rather I am just clarifying the exemption to idea that I respect all scientists.

So I have waited and I have yet to see any evident that Michael Mann is scientist.
And will use Wiki’s definition {or any better one, that anyone could point to}:
“A scientist, in a broad sense, is one engaging in a systematic activity to acquire knowledge. In a more restricted sense, a scientist may refer to an individual who uses the scientific method.”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientist

Of course don’t limit my respect to just scientists.
But scientists are doing important stuff and more importantly they part of a scientific process, and that process has made living on earth better for everyone.

–His problem is once you get into advocacy and propaganda, you lose credibility.–
Yeah- though there very good specific reasons one loses credibility.
As scientist one can speak for the state, or be spokesperson for many difference causes, and one can actually increase your credibility.

Propaganda which is of the brainwashing variety- such as parroting talking points and and not allowing questions to be asked, is quite unscientific.
One should lose credibility even if the person was not a scientist- but for a non scientist, it might help their credibility [though generally it’s mostly about the manner and style employed].

From the article:
…
The Earth Liberation Front (ELF), also known as “Elves” or “The Elves”,[1] is the collective name for autonomous individuals or covert cells who, according to the ELF Press Office, use “economic sabotage and guerrilla warfare to stop the exploitation and destruction of the environment”.

The ELF was founded in Brighton in the United Kingdom in 1992[2] and spread to the rest of Europe by 1994. It is now an international movement with actions reported in 17 countries[3][4][5] and is widely regarded as descending from Animal Liberation Front because of the relationship and cooperation between the two movements.[6] Using the same leaderless resistance model, as well as similar guidelines to the ALF,[2] sympathizers say that it is an eco-defense group dedicated to taking the profit motive out of environmental destruction by causing economic damage to businesses through the use of property damage.[7]

The ELF was classified as the top “domestic terror” threat in the United States by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in March 2001,[8][9] and its members were categorized as “eco-terrorists”.[citation needed][dubious – discuss] On the lack of deaths from ELF attacks, the FBI’s deputy assistant director for counterterrorism has said, “I think we’re lucky. Once you set one of these fires they can go way out of control.” [10] The name came to public prominence when they were featured on the television show 60 Minutes in 2005.[11] The group was further highlighted in the 2011 Academy Award nominated documentary, If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front.[12]
…

Have I missed something here in CE Threads? I just don’t see citations of published papers (hopefully peer reviewed) of reporting of AGW in Journalism. I see a lot of cherry-picking and anecdotal citations.

Here is an example — where reporting was shown to be close to 50/50 pro and con on the AGW debate:

> Now I am still waiting for someone to tell me how the Mann case is similar to the Paris massacre.

Perhaps this have been missed:

Alarmists have called for skeptics to face Nuremburg trials, go to prison, ad absurdium. Alarmists have killed their children and then themselves in a chilling echo of Jonestown. Alarmists have committed suicide by cop at the Discovery Channel headquarters. They trash archaeological treasures, agitate against cheap energy for the poor in South Africa and tell skeptics ‘we know where you live.’ The issue is serious enough to warrant comparison with what happened in Paris, if not exactly the same.

It is the alarmists who say that climate change is a species survival issue. And they are the ones who want to shut their opponents up. The fact that violence has been mostly absent is luck, nothing else.

Alarmists do want to shut Judith Curry et al the hell up. And if they can’t do that yet, they will trash her reputation, calling her a delayer, denier, incompetent, or even showing up at her weblog and clogging up the discussions with their trollery.

The ethical parallel is that neither radical Islamists nor CAGW prophets of doom will engage in honest debate with their opponents. Demonisation is sufficient for their cause. They are not trying to win an argument in either case. They are trying to hammer their opponents into submission.

I’m just glad we can finally seek a level of consistency with our values that applies to different situations, Don. Now that we can consistenly point out the alarmists among us, we prevent them to violate our ability to discuss and think.

Joshua
Wrong-“Denier” is a very easy description to not get upset about. Just ask the person using the term- what exactly I am being accused of denying? That the person is avoiding using good science to reach conclusions seems frequently correct.

Willard– You are correct! I deny that most CO2 mitigation proposals make economic sense. I deny that those advocating such activities can show that the benefit is worth the cost. Try to prove me wrong?

Alarmists destroy relics, kill innocent people, or abuse their psyches so much they force other alarmists to kill children, suicide themselves in mass, or become martyrs.

Even worse, they agitate, and prophecize doom. Even worse still if possible, they come here and clog the discussion. Alarmists prevent you to even think – have you tried to think when they’re around, RickA?

Were I an alarmist, I have no idea what I’d do to alarmists. I would certainly not demonize them, because that would make me an alarmist. Only alarmists demonize. Demonization is sufficient for their cause.

I deny that you have shown that mitigation actions are cost effective in a world of limited financial resources. (which is a fact in the real world) Since you can’t demonstrate that the activities you support will actually eliminate or even lessen your feared results all you have is appealing to authority and spreading fear of what might happen. Fear is powerful, but not necessary

Lived through one semester of law school, had fun. My criminal law professor was highly skilled in the Socratic method, and perhaps you too are such a professor. Assured that you would not infringe upon my liberty, less assured that you would not warp my brain.

I have mixed feelings about collateral damage when fighting against murderous fanatics, but there is a certain calculus that effectively means that civilians are targeted. I have no idea about the total numbers.

Then there is the question of how we, as a society, accepted a military invasion that resulted in hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties in the name of policies where the cost/benefit ratio was highly uncertain.

Interesting how trust in government, wariness about unintended outcomes, concern about expensive government initiatives can be rather…um…er…selective, isn’t it?

Thank you. Do you think that characterization of Gore was the start of a wide spread dialogue between both sides of the climate wars? I remember it as a cartooning of Gore, with his pretending to be smart guy from Harvard; comparable with his claim to have invented the Internet. Wasn’t it limited to presidential campaign talk?

OK, slight correction, he didn’t say “invented”. Rather, he said “During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet”. Not much difference in my mind.

Regardless, the criticism by his political opponents was related the political campaign, not related to the climate wars. My question is sincere, did the harsh dialogue in the climate wars start in the 1990s?

INDIANAPOLIS — The largest defamation verdict in Indiana history — more than $14.5 million awarded to a contractor who claimed State Farm Fire & Casualty ruined his business and reputation — has been upheld by the Indiana Court of Appeals.

Me too Max_OK because while confirmation bias affects most ordinary people, it seems to be even more pronounced with people who comment on blogs as a hobby. Not a criticism and no judgments are being made, its just the way it seems!

A few come to mind Max_OK. Matthew Marler, John Carpenter, Tony Brown and Vaughan Pratt seem open to all POV’s and would IMO change their mind if the data points that way.

The rest of us seem pretty well entrenched as far as AGW is concerned but there seems a lot of areas outside climate science where many of us are in general agreement.

As far as you and I are concerned Max we share a love of country life and a belief that the younger generation gets everything too easily. We appreciate that hard work is good character building stuff.

To add to yesterday’s enjoyable discussion we have this:
“An “ethic of justice or rights” is based on abstract, impersonal principles, like justice, fairness, equality or authority. People who prefer this style see ethical dilemmas as involving primarily a conflict of rights that can be solved by the impartial application of some general principle.” http://www.lmu.edu/Page23070.aspx That’s pretty much me. Conflict of rights in my case refers to a hierarchy of rights. For instance high up in my hierarchy is, Do not physically harm another. It would generally trump free speech rights. On this thread, I’m trying to apply a general principle to both cases. In Mann’s case some defamation principle is conflicting with the free speech principle. And there may be other principles in play as well. If the decision is clean, one principle will eventually win. Joshua pointed out context. That will change, but we strive for unchanging principles. At the link, the Ethic of justice is compared to the Ethic of care. That might explain some of the disagreements. The Ethic of justice “…seems to fit with a more legalistic approach to life that gives allegiance to some external source of authority.” That’s me again. I’ve spent some time promoting the CPA code of ethics as an example. We are legally bound to it if we want to be a practicing CPA. But I am merely suggesting scientists consider a voluntary code. The Ethic of care “approach is flexible, caring and subjective–appropriately so. It can respond quickly to changing circumstances and is not preoccupied with the idea of setting precedents.” I am not so much in favor of that approach. In my job the hard part can be the gray areas of the tax laws. I don’t want subjective guidance for subjective questions. Gray on gray. No thank you. Take the quick test: http://www.lmu.edu/Page23849.aspx Are you the Ethic justice or the Ethic of care? If the page doesn’t format correctly, try hitting the tab key.

After reading a lot of opinions here, and I do think this post has been very productive in the airing of the situation(s); I can see that Mann and the Muslim low life murderers are both trying to put a chill on free speech. Beyond that, the details diverge quickly.

One nice thing about today is that three million copies of Charlie Hebdo have been published with Mohammad cartoons, partly with money set aside from Google. Charlie Hebdo was going broke, now CH is everywhere. That that, slime ball murdering Muslim militants!

From the article:
…
Paris (AFP) – This week’s three million copies of Charlie Hebdo, the first post-attack issue of the French satirical weekly, will defiantly feature caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed, its lawyer said Monday.

Related Stories

Mohammed holds ‘Je suis Charlie’ sign in new Charlie Hebdo AFP
Charlie Hebdo ‘survivor’s issue’ to sell outside France AFP
Charlie Hebdo to publish 1 million copies next week MarketWatch
Charlie Hebdo will publish one million copies of its new issue next week The Week (RSS)
Attacked satirical French weekly to print a million copies next week Reuters
The special issue, to come out on Wednesday, will also be offered “in 16 languages” for readers around the world, one of its columnists, Patrick Pelloux, said.

Charlie Hebdo’s lawyer, Richard Malka, told French radio the upcoming publication will “obviously” lampoon Mohammed — among other figures — to show staff will “cede nothing” to extremists seeking to silence them.
…

Regarding the problem of intolerance of speech on campuses, I recommend a trip over to the Foundation on Individual Rights in Education http://www.thefire.org/

Among other things, they rank campuses on a red-light, yellow-light, green-light score for freedom of speech based on universities’ formal policies and “speech codes.” Georgia Tech earned a red-light rating, meaning that it has at least one policy that on its face, regardless of interpretation or implementation, unambiguously infringes on protected expression:http://www.thefire.org/schools/georgia-institute-of-technology/

It turns out that Tech has this First-Amendment-violating gem on the books: “Each member of our community must be committed to the creation of a harmonious climate because one cannot be neutral to this challenge. Those who are committed to it strengthen Georgia Tech and themselves. Individuals who choose not to commit to the challenge, via acts of intolerance, jeopardize their continued affiliation with the Institute. Those acts may be defined as attempts to injure, harm, malign, or harass a person because of race, religious belief, color, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, age, or gender.”

The skepticals have decided it is too hard to attack AGW scientifically, so now their tactic is to bring it down one scientist at a time. So far they are still struggling to bring the first one (Mann) down, and he keeps doing inconvenient things to defend himself like using legal recourse. This is making the plan a lot more of a hard slog than it might have seemed a few years ago. I think they need to try something or someone else. How about Hansen? There must be some material there.

Which is what I think putting their full force to bear on Mann is. They are just wasting time and energy on this sideshow. It doesn’t advance their cause against climate science and mitigation one bit.

Have these people had their emails hacked or been brought to court to reveal more emails or had their postdoctoral research scrutinized by multiple committees, or had blog sites still devoted to nitpicking his work from 15 years ago? There is no parallel.

You’re right, JimD. There is no parallel. Pielke had his career derailed, Lomborg was hounded to high heaven and Curry has acknowledged that her career path has been more or less truncated because of her involvement in the debate. Oooh, a critical website… Oooh…

The Climategate emails were probably not hacked, by the way. It was probably a whistleblower. As for long-lasting blog criticism, I fail to see that as problematic–for someone who insists that scientist never graft instrument data on top of proxy data, sites that say otherwise probably sail right on by.

Mann has had over 100 papers, and they are still only criticizing two of the early ones. They have a long way to go to derail his career, but they keep pounding away on those two papers while he has moved on. People need to move on and find some more recent papers. There has been a lot of better tree ring and proxy paleo work since 1999, and you wouldn’t know it by reading their sites. Curry still does OK getting onto congressional panels and doing op-eds or being interviewed and quoted probably more than most scientists on climate. I wouldn’t call that derailed either. Not sure what you mean about Pielke.

JimD, as Mann has published over 100 papers and is a tenured scientist who is invited to appear before the media and speak at conferences, it is hard to see how he has been injured. Pielke has had funding requests denied and invitations to write for IPCC withdrawn.

Max, I imagine McIntrye does imagine life without Mann. He would probably be happier playing tennis. But as long as Mann keeps doubling down on his errors, why should McIntyre let him get a way with it?

You seem to forget in all this that McIntyre was right and Mann was wrong. Or does that not matter any more?

thomaswfuller2 said on January 13, 2015 at 2:28 am
“JimD, as Mann has published over 100 papers and is a tenured scientist who is invited to appear before the media and speak at conferences, it is hard to see how he has been injured. Pielke has had funding requests denied and invitations to write for IPCC withdrawn.

Max, I imagine McIntrye does imagine life without Mann. He would probably be happier playing tennis. But as long as Mann keeps doubling down on his errors, why should McIntyre let him get a way with it?

You seem to forget in all this that McIntyre was right and Mann was wrong. Or does that not matter any more?”
_____

Thomas, re Mann’s “hockey stick” I know McIntyre claims Mann’s methods were wrong, and I know the claims are controversial, but I don’t know he claims Mann’s conclusions were wrong.

I doubt McIntyre would rather be playing tennis than nitpicking Mann’s work. Most people like to do what they do best, and I’ll bet he’s a better nitpicker than tennis player.

Mann is McIntyre’s life. He should take out an insurance policy on Mann.

McIntyre is a world-class squash player in his age group. But I get the impression that pursuing Mann’s errors is not the binding constraint on his participation in that sport. More to the point, McIntyre has a much broader interest in the methods of paleoclimate study. He’s kind of a proxy nerd.

OK, here’s the lowdown, and it’s illustrated by a paradox in the principal. Though he’s loathe to discuss policy, and will loose the zamboni over the mere odor of it, I suspect he’s deeply concerned about the misapplication of science to policy. The Piltdown Mann’s Crook’t Stick is not the way to use science for policy; it is an error and can only have bad results.

But, that said, he’s a complex man, and I only hint at part of his motivation.
=====================

What I don’t like about Lewis’s comment is how he uses precise numbers to three decimal places for the forcing when the error bars don’t even justify confidence in the first decimal place. He is too confident by far about the numbers. Judith needs to talk to him about that.

C’mon, we know the aerosols are fudge. All that chocolate ooze has helped elevate the calculations for sensitivity, so this irony is rich and milky. Jim, are you unaware what this mess has done for sensitivity, estimated or however precisely measured?
====================

kim, Lewis believes the IPCC aerosols to three decimal places. Even the IPCC doesn’t have that much confidence in them. There is a significant chance, according to the IPCC, that the total forcing does not exceed the CO2 forcing.

Of course the full range has to be considered possible and that is what the IPCC does with these uncertainties. Plus it is no comfort if other GHGs minus aerosols are between them enhancing the CO2 effect by 30%. This leaves even less room for natural variability, and leaves the Lewis and Curry estimate for CO2 doubling alone lacking an important factor in the real warming to be expected.

A few comments.
1. Great thread today, Dr. Curry. Thank you for that.
2. Lots of very good comments. And, in general, very civil. That’s always a pleasant surprise.
3. I don’t have much to say about the current hot topic that occurred in France. Not because I’m afraid of expressing my opinion, but because I don’t think I have enough information to make a valid comment (and see #4). I will say that I find the deaths very sad. Life is already too short and precious.
4. I find the root issue of this subject, and thread, intriguingly similar to the one on Dr. Curry’s interview with Mrs. Green. And, it is (in my humble (and I sincerely mean that) opinion) perhaps being treated with the same level of thought and discussion. In short, I find the issue of “global climate cycles” (the ones whose cycle is in the 50,000 to 100,000 years of length) incredibly (to date, I suspect beyond comprehension) complex. And I think the same is true of our various social, ummm, problems (issues? well, whatever). And yet, we attempt to see both issues in terms of black and white. Or, 1 + 1 = 2. Or, the sound bites of our politicians. Or …. well, the list is lengthy.

I suppose I could be wrong. In fact, I’ve been wrong a lot of times. That said, I may need to use the above (# 4) in some work I’m doing. It has potential. Even if it’s wrong.

Mr Farage, leader of the anti-EU UK Independence Party, said mass immigration had “made it frankly impossible for many new communities to integrate.” “We do have, I’m afraid, I’m sad to say, a fifth column that is living within our own countries, that is utterly opposed to our values,” he said. “We’re going to have to be a lot braver and a lot more courageous in standing up for our Judeo-Christian culture.”

Leading British politicians criticised Mr Farage last week for speaking about a “fifth column”, accusing him of trying to use the Paris murders to score “political points”. Commenting on his latest remarks, Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Tim Farron said: “Nigel Farage’s politics of blame has no place in modern, diverse and tolerant Britain.”

Faustino, I do enjoy Farage’s fulminations, and he annoys all the right people. While I am no fan (at all!) of Le Pen and the French National Front, it’s worthwhile to remember that there was a campaign back in 1996 by senior staff of a far-left magazine with the specific purpose of having that party banned by law. The campaign collected 170,000 signatures.

What should be sympathy for private individuals and rage against terror has been turned into a promo for a dreary, offensive, extremist rag which was deservedly going under. Peter Hitchens, but few others, are seeing it.

I can only put it down to a cooler-than-thou mentality which makes it okay to ridicule the alleged misdeeds of a Bill Cosby (Tina Fey and friend pulling up just short of black-face) while pouring sympathy and excuses on that darling of the luvvie left, Roman Polanski. (And it was rape-rape. He enjoyed it so much he did it twice.)

How many conservatives marching for Charlie and identifying as Charlie know what a gutter of talentless, humourless drek that magazine is?
Even when they appal, they bore.

“It is right and good to say we are not at war with Islam, but it is dishonest to claim that there are no Muslims waging war against us. Falling back on sanitized euphemisms is the rhetorical equivalent of pixelating Mohammed; it fools no one except fools.

A free society cannot allow freedom to be held hostage to murderers. And that is why I favor running those images of Mohammed even if some of them offend me. Moderation, tolerance, and respect are essential to a free society, but we are in a moment where moderation, tolerance, and respect are too easily confused for appeasement. And that is why the jihadists are winning. They are forcing us into only bad options. The center is not holding.”

Chuckr, I’m perfectly fine with hunting down and killing the assassins. I’m fine with people publishing and saying what they like on the subject of religion, immigration, islamisation etc.

But why am I supposed to repeat, disseminate, re-publish or amplify what I do not like and do not agree with? I had no say in producing those oafish and unfunny cartoons. Even if they were not controversial, I’d be embarrassed to look at such lame scribblings, let alone help circulate them. If someone wants to provoke someone in the extreme that’s their business. If they get injured or killed as a result of their provocation I want the law to intervene and apply. And I will support the law with vigour.

However, if I hurl an insult at someone on this blog I will not expect others to “show courage” and insult in the same measure because of a perception that we are on the same team on a particular issue. I start it, I finish it.

I will never be Charlie. To me they are dreary, beige people trying to be colourful by shocking the bourgeois without realising they are themselves the bourgeois. Furthermore, they have shown in the National Front matter that they want free Charlie, not free speech.

I just want the thugs who murdered at Charlie Hebdo to be tracked and killed. On the other hand…

I agree with you in principle but sometimes you’ve got to stand with people you might otherwise not… to support a more important cause. Of course if you don’t think that cause is more important or the support is not effective then you’re going to come to a different conclusion Me(Je Suis Mayor of Rotterham)

The Moroccan-born mayor of Rotterdam has said Muslim immigrants who do not appreciate the way of life in Western civilisations can ‘f***off

Appearing on live television just hours after the shootings, Mayor Aboutaleb said Muslims who ‘do not like freedom can pack your bags and leave’.

Labour politician Ahmed Aboutaleb, a former journalist who was appointed mayor of the Dutch city in 2008, is known for his straight-forward stance on integration.

‘It is incomprehensible that you can turn against freedom,’ Mayor Aboutaleb told Dutch current affairs program Nieuwsuur (Newshour).

‘But if you don’t like freedom, for heaven’s sake pack your bags and leave.
‘If you do not like it here because some humorists you don’t like are making a newspaper, may I then say you can f*** off.

‘This is stupid, this so incomprehensible. Vanish from the Netherlands if you cannot find your place here. All those well-meaning Muslims here will now be stared at’.

So the scientific enlightenment diminishes to defending the right of pissant progressives to gratuitously offend an entire religion – and of a journalists right to slander anyone they feel like and call it lampooning? A sad day indeed in the decline of the west.

The prime duty of a citizen in a democracy is to respect the rule of law. Although that sometimes leads to the necessity of civil disobedience and in the extreme – if democracy itself is under threat – the grave responsibility to take up arms. It doesn’t lead to taking innocent lives it futile conflagrations. That’s just nihilistic madness.

I do think think Mann needs to go down big time – but it is a matter him bringing the lumbering weight of the law to such trivial ends.

A third said the country was plagued by two types of people: “A people looking for a fatwa [religious ruling] for everything in their lives, and a cleric who wants to interfere in everything in the lives of others through a fatwa.”

And what did all these grandees [interior ministers and security experts] decide? Well, like the lads of the cyber-caliphate, they’re all about the Internet – that’s to say, “while safeguarding that it remains, in scrupulous observance of fundamental freedoms , a forum for free expression”, they’re going to lean on Internet providers “to create the conditions of a swift reporting of material that aims to incite hatred and terror and the condition of its removing”.

Ah. So to honor the memory of all those cartoonists who died for free speech they’re going to police free speech ever more rigorously. This is already a culture in which a Yorkshireman can be arrested for posting a video of him dumping a Koran in the toilet, and in which the useless totalitarian twerps of the Scottish Police openly threaten the citizenry that they’re under constant surveillance. What’s more likely under the new security regime? That they’ll be cracking down on ISIS recruiters and firebreathing imams? Or just creating makework schemes for Constable McPlod to chastise the multiculturally insensitive?

There are commenters here who are furiously rejecting any connection between Michael Mann and the perpetrators of the Charlie Hebdo massacre. And they have a point. It’s a matter of degree. The slaughter of satirists is immediate and shocking. By comparison, Mann’s methods to suppress speech are much more subtle and in fact would have been nearly invisible were it not for the Climategate emails that exposed the machinations of the coterie of climate scientists who control the IPCC and its output. Mann et al haven’t just suppressed speech through his lawsuits, they did it by exercising prior restraint of a sort by exerting pressure on the process of publishing scientific literature.

What makes Mann and his ilk as dangerous as those who would wantonly murder is his position as a favored agent of the state. They have a reciprocal relationship: Mann et al provide the state with the dubious science they need to assert firm regulatory control over energy production and consumption (trillions of dollars worth around the world), and they provide Mann et al with a lifetime of grants and salaries, as well as the courts in which to harass and disarm his (and their) enemies.

When Judge Weisberg ruled in Mann’s favor on the dismissal of the case on anti-SLAPP grounds, he repeatedly did so “in the light most favorable to the plaintiff.” Why he did that, rather than in a light most favorable to the First Amendment is a mystery that I’m sure will have judges in the higher courts scratching their heads. He makes only one passing reference to “actual malice,” and says, in effect, “let the jury decide,” presuming thereby that a magazine like National Review publishes columns in which their writers make statements they know to be false. Thus the courts become the knife of a thousand cuts with which to bleed the First Amendment to death in the service of the climate alarmist agenda– the lifeblood of the EPA’s recent power grab. In the same way that many magazines refuse to publish material that is even marginally anti-Islamic for fear of retaliation, so is it with those magazines who might want to accuse establishment climate scientists of producing a flawed product. Again, a matter of degree, but still effective.

As of December 2009, Mann and his associates had received over $6 million in government grants to pursue their studies.

Nice post. Totally agree on the seriousness of the Mann lawsuit and for the reasons you point out.
Since the 60’s our political system seems to have gone into an unstable oscillation between right facism and left facism. All we need is a few select laws to enable a runaway of power and this country and its long history of freedom is done. Its a boring example and I wish I knew history better and could provide another example, but just look at sequence of events that led to the power grab in Germany. Its was a grab by legal maneuvering, not by weapons.

“Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda, blamed the United States and developed countries for not halting climate change and said that the global economy should immediately abandon its reliance on the American dollar, according to an audiotape released Friday by the broadcaster Al Jazeera.

“Talk about climate change is not an ideological luxury but a reality,” Mr. bin Laden was quoted as saying in a report on Al Jazeera’s English-language Web site. “All of the industrialized countries, especially the big ones, bear responsibility for the global warming crisis.”

The authenticity of the tape could not be immediately confirmed, and Al Jazeera, which is based in Qatar, did not say how it had obtained the message.

But if substantiated, it would be Mr. bin Laden’s second public message within a week. On Sunday, Al Jazeera broadcast a one-minute tape in which Mr. bin Laden hailed the Dec. 25 attempt to bring down a plane bound for Detroit and warned of more attacks against the United States.

Mr. bin Laden, who is believed to be hiding in Pakistan near the Afghanistan border and has issued several other taped anti-West invectives, had not put one out in four months before the one about the attempted airline bombing.

In the message broadcast on Friday, Mr. bin Laden veered away from his traditional vows to inflict death and destruction on the United States, and instead discussed climate change, globalization and monetary policy in a message that he said was directed to “the whole world.”

He called for a worldwide boycott of American goods and the dollar. He faulted the United States for failing to sign the Kyoto Protocol, which sought to curb global warming by restricting greenhouse gas emissions. And he offered a word of praise for Noam Chomsky, the American linguist and liberal political activist.

“Noam Chomsky was correct when he compared the U.S. policies to those of the Mafia,” Al Jazeera quoted Mr. bin Laden as saying. “They are the true terrorists, and therefore we should refrain from dealing in the U.S. dollar and should try to get rid of this currency as early as possible.”

Bank and government officials in China, Russia and elsewhere have previously floated the idea of abandoning the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, replacing it with a basket of other currencies and commodities like gold.

But Mr. bin Laden’s aim in turning away from the dollar appears to be to inflict harm on the American economy.

“I am certain that such actions will have grave repercussions and huge impact,” he was quoted as saying.”

The light most favorable to the plaintiff is the rule the Judge has to apply to dismiss the case at this early stage (before discovery). This rule is applied to all such motions in all such cases – not just to the Mann defamation case.

Whenever you move to dismiss at an early stage – for example by saying that the case fails to state a proper claim – the court looks at the pleadings and assumes everything plead is true – then asks if everything is assumed true – is there a case?

If not – the case is dismissed.

Even if the appeal affirms the DC court’s decision not to dismiss there is still time to move for dismissal based on summary judgment or even later for a directed verdict.

Why can’t we go back to the way it was before this assault on our freedom of speech?

You know, like some 200 years ago, when a black man had the right to protest the r*pe of his wife, or a black woman could speak out about having her child taken away? Or how about some 60 year ago, when a black kid could say they wanted to eat at a lunch counter or ride in the front of a bus. How about maybe 30 years ago, when a g*y person would be able to state their s*xual preference without any fear of discrimination?

Like you, I so alarmed that I won’t be able to express my views – ’cause you know Michael Mann and all. First they came for climate “skeptics,” you know what I mean? It’s the exact same alarm I might feel if I run into a jihadist wielding a k*lashnikov.

Well, not exactly, the same – only similar. You know, same, same but different.

So someone can’t be a bully unless they sue someone? And all suits = bullying?

If Mann’s case has solid merits, he’ll probably win. In that case,I wouldn’t consider that bullying.

If Mann’s case has no solid merits, he’ll probably lose. In that case, I wouldn’t consider that bullying.

If the case is close, then he might win or he might lose; in that case, then it is probably a situation where we’ll benefit from more precedent and greater clarity regarding the laws we have in place to protect freedom of speech. In that case, I wouldn’t consider that bullying.

Our system of laws will survive this case no matter the ruling. Our freedom of speech will survive this case no matter the ruling.

All this self-serving hand-wringing about the Mann vs. Steyn case, and about bullying more generally, is amusing, IMO, on both sides.

IMO, Judith was right when she suggested more wearing of big boy pants – only she forgot to take her own pair out of her pants drawer.

OK. I think I understand now. And from that, I have a plan for going forward.

From now on, when anyone thinks that they have been defamed, they should just consult with you first to see if their case has any merit. If you say that it doesn’t, then they’ll just know to drop the case, because otherwise they’d be “bullying” (in this case, someone who makes a career out of insulting people for political reasons).

In fact, let’s just do away with the judicial system entirely. Who needs it? What role could it play? We’ll just let you decide on the merits of cases; if you can’t handle them all, you could appoint a few friends to take up the slack.

Thanks, potter. You have shown that you can make all the points you want to make about Mann without trivializing your arguments by piggybacking on the Paris massacre, which has nothing to do with Mann.

I do think it was ill-advised for Judith to have explicitly brought up the events in Paris in connection to the Mann-Steyn lawsuit. However, I also think you are going overboard in stating that there is no connection whatsoever between the tactics that Mann habitually uses and the tactics of the Islamists. In both cases they seek to win the argument by force: the Islamists by force of violence; the warmists by force of law. But in both cases by force rather than persuasion.

Tom, why can’t you just say that Mann is trying to do whatever you think he is trying to do, by force of law? Why bring a massacre, which is heinously unlawful, into the story? Why give your detractors a reason to point out that you are using the tired old propaganda tactic of false equivalency and to ridicule you mercilessly on your own blog and on twitter? I am trying to help the lady to avoid these kinds of unforced errors. She just keeps digging herself in deeper. Tell her it’s ill-advised. I know what I am doing. I don’t need your advice.

But from some of the other things you have written it appears you think that Mann truly thinks his reputation was damaged by Steyn and he is seeking just compensation. This is B.S. He calls other scientists “frauds”, etc. all the time and is not charging data falsification per se. He is seeking to bully others into silence.

Look, this was not a good rhetorical strategy on her part. All I’m saying is that there is, on some level, an analogy. In fact, Steyn often makes the point, in a satirical way, by speaking of the “climate mullahs”. McIntyre has also spoken of warmist “jihad”. It works on a satirical level but not on a serious prose level.

Unlike you, i am not able to determine what Mann “really thinks.” i guess I’m just not enough of a skeptic, eh?

Anyway, judith calls scientists “deniers,” even Asia she describes such actions as intolerant. Dies that mean that she’s trying to bully people onto science, or engaging in rhetorical over reach? How do you know the difference?

“Anyway, judith calls scientists “deniers,” even Asia she describes such actions as intolerant. Dies that mean that she’s trying to bully people onto science, or engaging in rhetorical over reach? How do you know the difference?”

Tom, why can’t you just say that Mann is trying to do whatever you think he is trying to do, by force of law? Why bring a massacre, which is heinously unlawful, into the story? Why give your detractors a reason to point out that you are using the tired old propaganda tactic of false equivalency and to ridicule you mercilessly on your own blog and on twitter? I am trying to help the lady to avoid these kinds of unforced errors. She just keeps digging herself in deeper. Tell her it’s ill-advised. I know what I am doing. I don’t need your advice.–

But it is possible the Judith knows something that you do not.
Even if Judith wasn’t wildly successful in what she wants to do, and even if she wasn’t very bright in general, it’s still possible she knows something
which you do not.

Don: Suppression of speech connects them. It’s a danger regardless of the means used to impose it. Mann is obviously not a violent man, but he knows how to wreak havoc in other people’s lives. Ask Tim Ball who got sued by Mann for making a joke from the age of vaudeville. Anyone who reads the law knows the chances of these suits succeeding, at least in the US, are slim. The higher courts are almost certainly going to reverse any judgement that goes against plaintiffs. But Mann still wins, unless Steyn somehow prevails in his countersuit, which, according to some of the legal eagles who’ve posted at ClimateAudit, is unlikely, however devoutly to be wished. As Steyn has said, the process is the punishment.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t have several hundred thousand dollars laying around to defend myself in a frivolous and ideologically-motivated lawsuit.

Anyway, Judith calls scientists “deniers,” even as she describes such actions [calling people deniers] as intolerant. Does that mean that she’s trying to bully people onto silence, or that she’s engaging in rhetorical over reach? How do you know the difference?”

Kim, Judith is not some usually thoughtful and amusing anonymous blog character. I presume that she wants to maintain a reputation as a serious scientist. There is no good reason for her to try to argue some point, or to air some peeve, by linking a freaking civil lawsuit to a very recent massacre. It’s not working for her. It’s unseemly, for obvious reasons. And tasty fodder for the trolls.

Tom, you are just shifting the story line slightly away from the recent massacre to generic Islamist’s force of violence and on to satire about mullahs etc., but you are sticking with the false equivalency BS. Serious people understand that a civil lawsuit is not analogous in any meaningful way on any level to mass murder or any other kind of unlawful violent intimidation. No reason to go there.

Mann is within his rights in using the law to try to sanction some clown monetarily for a few easily avoided words that may or may not be found to be defamatory. Mann will probably lose. Even if he wins, Western civilization and skeptical climate scientists will very likely survive. And people will go right on criticizing Mann, with the smart ones using a different “f” word to describe the little runt. Steyn can even go on calling him the f—- word, as long as he can afford it.

Muslims aren’t doing anything new. Nothing about what and how they think has changed recently. With Western dollars flowing there since the 70s they’re now able to bring it here. They may now be able to change the political climate but neither them nor the West can change the climate of the Earth, which is still, Steady Eddie—

Jiansong Zhou and Ka-Kit Tung (Deducing Multi-decadal Anthropogenic Global Warming Trends Using Multiple Regression Analysis), looked for evidence of humanity cooking the globe. After excluding the effects of the AMO (Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation) trends, they found what they were looking for. However, humanity’s contribution had to be less than half of, previously deduced anthropogenic warming rates. Moreover, Zhou and Tung found no statistically-relevant evidence of neither an acceleration nor a pause in global warming over the last 100 years.

The author seems to be saying we should not be afraid to use freedom of speech to antagonize. I’m not sure using freedom of speech to put a bullseye on my back is always a good idea. It depends on what’s at stake. If nothing can be gained, what would be the point of inviting trouble?